Child and family

• Support for children and families
  • Support for parents and families
  • Independent person
    • Information for children and young people
    • Information for families
    • Information for independent persons
• Protecting children
  • About child protection
    • Reporting and referring concerns
    • Child protection legislation
    • Mandatory reporting
    • Children and young people's rights
    • Parents' rights
    • Roles and responsibilities
    • National approach to child protection
  • What is child abuse?
  • What is child sexual abuse?
  • How to prevent abuse
    • Protecting children from harm
    • Prevention and early intervention
  • Reporting child abuse
    • If you suspect harm
    • What happens when we are contacted?
    • What happens when a report is made?
    • Reporting child abuse in other states
  • Responding to child abuse
    • Moving a child to a safe place
    • Investigation and assessment
      • Unborn children
      • Assessment orders
    • Care Agreements
    • What you can expect
  • Ongoing intervention
    • Case planning
      • Service referrals
    • Support Service case
    • Intervention with Parental Agreement
    • Child Protection Order
    • Family group meetings
    • Court processes
    • Youth justice
    • Contacts
  • Resources and publications
    • Family Group Meeting (FGM) Convenor Handbook
• Foster and kinship care
  • Carer training
    • Foster carer training
      • Foreword
      • Procedures and guidelines
      • Frequently asked questions
      • Orientation
      • Learning outcomes
      • Pre-service training
      • Water safety for carers
      • Learning journal
      • Standard training
      • Caring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
      • Advanced training
        • Attachment
        • Whose problem is this?
        • Foster Parent College
        • Independence and connections
        • I'm an individual...
        • Infectious diseases
        • Ready, set, fly! A parent's guide to teaching life skills
        • Loss and grief for children in care
        • Participation
        • Positive and Protective series
        • Reality fostering
        • Strategies for Managing Abuse Related Trauma (SMART)
        • Whose job is this?
      • Recognition of prior learning (RPL)
      • Acknowledgements
  • Rights and responsibilities
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
    • Child Placement Principle
  • Regulation of care
    • Responding to concerns about the quality of care received by a child in a care arrangement
    • Community Visitors and Child Advocates
  • Contacts
    • Community foster care agency contacts
      • Brisbane Region
      • Central Queensland Region
      • Far North Queensland Region
      • North Coast Region
      • North Queensland Region
      • South East Region
      • South West Region
    • Indigenous foster care agency contacts
    • Peak body and advocacy group contacts
  • Resources and publications
    • Information for existing carers
    • Information for prospective carers
    • Recruitment of foster carers
    • Children and Young People's Participation Strategy
• Adoption
  • Resources and publications
• Child and family reform
  • Sharing responsibility for children's safety and wellbeing
  • Supporting families earlier
  • Working better with families in contact with the child protection system
  • Meeting the needs and requirements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, families and communities
    • Empowering Families Innovation Fund
    • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Service Reform Project
    • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Family Wellbeing Services
    • Family Participation Program
    • Indigenous career progression - cadetships and scholarships
    • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child protection sector and service development
  • Improving care and post-care for children and young people
  • Delivering quality services to children and families through a capable, motivated workforce and client-focused organisations
    • Quality Improvement Program
  • Building an accountable, transparent and cost-effective system
  • Child protection legislation reform
  • History of child protection legislation reforms
  • Specialist Services
  • Using technology for business transformation
• Queensland Government Response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
  • Truth, Healing and Reconciliation Taskforce
    • Taskforce members
  • National Redress Scheme in Queensland
• NDIS implementation
  • Information for young people with disability in care
  • Information for foster and kinship carers of children with disability
  • NDIS information for parents and families of children in care
  • NDIS information for Family Support Providers
  • NDIS information for Residential Care services
• Our performance
  • Summary statistics
    • Child protection orders
    • Protective orders
  • Family Support and Child Protection System Framework
  • Family Support Services
  • Intake phase
    • Child concern reports
    • Notifications
  • Investigation and assessment phase
    • Assessment orders
    • Investigation and assessment
    • Substantiations
  • Ongoing intervention phase
    • Intervention with parental agreement
    • Short-term child protection orders
    • Living away from home
    • Carer families
  • Ongoing intervention phase (Permanency planning)
    • Legal Permanency - Long-term child protection orders
    • Exiting out-of-home care
  • Improved safety
    • Re-entry
    • Standard of care reviews and harm reports
  • High quality services and improved wellbeing
    • Case plans
    • Child health passports
    • Physical Permanency: Stability and permanency of placements
    • Transition to adulthood
    • Relational Permanency – Placement with siblings
    • Cultural support plan
  • Representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
    • Our Way Strategy and Action Plan
    • Placement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
  • Family and household characteristics
  • Demographics
  • System and Practice Reviews - Child deaths
  • Regional data
    • Central Queensland region
    • Moreton region
    • Northern region
    • South East region
    • South West region
  • Adoptions
  • Glossary of terms
  • Table notes
  • Contacts
  • Resources and publications
    • Child protection partnerships reports
• Child Safety Practice Manual
• Child and family resources
  • Protecting children: an inquiry into abuse of children in foster care
  • Managing child safety information
  • Assessment of the OneSchool Referral Process
  • Evaluation of the Child Protection Joint Response Team Trial

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   • Support for children and families
4. Intake phase

Intake is the initial decision making point where the department determines its response to reports of suspected harm or risk of harm to a child or unborn child who may be at risk of harm after he or she is born.

It is initiated when professionals, family members or members of the public contact the department with concerns of harm or risk of harm to a child.

Each day, Regional Intake Services receive information from a variety of sources including parents, neighbours, health sources, friends and relatives, police and school personnel with concerns for children and young people.

The department may respond by:

• recording an intake enquiry
• recording a child concern report if the child protection concerns received by the department do not meet the threshold for a notification. A CSO may respond to a child concern report by providing information and advice to the caller or making a referral to an appropriate agency.
• recording a notification when the concerns suggest that there is a reasonable suspicion that a child is in need of protection. That is, a child has been significantly harmed, is being significantly harmed, or is at risk of significant harm, and does not have a parent able and willing to protect them.

Graphs

Number of intake responses to child protection reports, by response type, Queensland, 2015-16 to 2019-20

Proportion of intakes by primary source, Queensland, 2019-20

Tables

Table notes

Trends

The department reports on the number of intakes (child concern reports and notifications) received each year. In 2019-20, there were 129,113 intakes relating to 76,207 children received by the department.

Over the past year, the number of intakes increased by 6.0 per cent, from 121,813 for 2018-19 to 129,113 for 2019-20.

In 2019-20, the major sources of intakes were school personnel (24.1 per cent) followed by parent/guardian (14.9 per cent) and health sources (13.2 per cent).

The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children subject to an intake increased by 7.2 per cent from 17,268 children in 2018-19 to 18,511 children in 2019-20. The number of non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children subject to an intake increased by 2.5 per cent from 56,287 children in 2018-19 to 57,696 children in 2019-20.

Over the past five years there has been an increase of 30.0 per cent in total intakes received by the department, from 99,293 for 2015-16 to 129,113 for 2019-20.  

Performance information

• Child Concern Reports data
• Notifications data