Part A:
All children and young people

Health dimension

Most children and young people in South Australia are in good health.

• Positive trends include a high proportion of women attending a first antenatal visit in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy and declining smoking rates in pregnancy. Viewed in the national context, South Australia’s infant mortality rate is low and childhood immunisation rates are high.
• Concerningly, the data indicate that more than 95% of children and young people (2-17 years) in South Australia don’t meet national guidelines for vegetable consumption.

Safety dimension

Most children and young people in South Australia are safe from preventable injury, abuse and neglect.

• Positive trends include a reduction in the proportion of children and young people presenting to public hospital emergency departments whose presentations are classified as ‘potentially preventable hospitalisations’, a significant reduction in police cautions or fines to drivers for passengers under 16 years not being safely restrained, and a significant drop in arrests of children and young people (10-17 years).
• Of the utmost concern is that increasing numbers of children and young people have contact with the child protection and youth justice systems, eg:
• more children and young people are in out-of-home care and substantiated notifications for infants and children (birth to nine years) have increased significantly
• there has been an increase in children and young people under 18 years being victims of offences against the person reported to the police