Queensland Foster Care Statistics: How Many Children Are in Care?

Queensland has more children in out-of-home care than any other Australian state. That fact alone speaks to the scale of what the foster care system here is dealing with — and why the shortage of authorised carers has become a sustained crisis rather than a temporary gap.

Understanding the numbers is not just background information for curious observers. For a prospective carer, it clarifies the urgency of the need, the likely characteristics of children who might be placed with you, and the direction the system is heading. The statistics also illuminate something that official government websites tend to understate: Queensland's child protection system is under enormous strain, and volunteer carers are carrying a disproportionate share of it.

How Many Children Are in Foster Care in Queensland?

Approximately 10,000 children and young people are in out-of-home care (OOHC) in Queensland at any given time. This figure has grown steadily over the past decade, a trajectory that the Department of Child Safety, Seniors and Disability Services (DCSSDS) attributes to a combination of increased reporting, deeper engagement with at-risk families, and a persistent shortage of in-home early intervention services.

Queensland accounts for roughly 24% of Australia's total OOHC population, despite representing about 20% of the national population — indicating a higher-than-average rate of children entering care relative to population size.

Of those approximately 10,000 children:

• The majority are in family-based care, either with kinship carers (relatives or known persons) or with authorised foster carers. Queensland's data consistently shows kinship placements making up a larger share than stranger-foster placements, reflecting the system's legislative preference for keeping children connected to their family networks.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are significantly overrepresented. While First Nations children make up approximately 6% of Queensland's child population, they account for around 30% of children in out-of-home care. This disproportion has been a central concern of advocates, the Queensland Family and Child Commission, and the 2026 Commission of Inquiry into Child Safety.
• Around 20% of children in OOHC are in residential or other non-family-based care, a figure the government is actively working to reduce through the Professional Foster Care Pilot and other initiatives.

Age Distribution and Placement Needs

Children in Queensland's OOHC system span every age group, from infants removed within days of birth to teenagers approaching the transition-to-adulthood milestone at 18. The age distribution shapes what carers can expect:

• Young children (0–4) are the most common age group entering care, often due to parental incapacity related to substance use, mental health issues, or family violence.
• Teenagers are the hardest age group for which to find placements. Many carers prefer younger children, leaving a significant gap for adolescents aged 13–17 who carry complex trauma histories and require experienced, patient households.
• Sibling groups represent a persistent challenge. The system strongly prefers keeping siblings together, but finding a carer who can take two, three, or four children simultaneously is difficult, and placement separation is a recognised harm that case plans try to minimise.

The Carer Shortage in Numbers

Queensland does not have a shortage of people who have considered fostering. Research by Foster Care Queensland and PeakCare consistently shows that large numbers of Queensland residents have thought about it — but a combination of confusion about the process, fear of the bureaucratic complexity, and concerns about the impact on their own families prevents most from progressing to an application.

The functional result is that roughly one in four placement requests in Queensland cannot be matched to an available authorised carer. Children who cannot be placed with family or an authorised foster carer are placed in residential care facilities — which research consistently shows produce worse outcomes for children — or moved to distant placements that sever their connection to community, school, and siblings.

PeakCare Queensland's submission to the 2026 Commission of Inquiry found that 76% of Queensland carers are out of pocket by up to $400 per fortnight because the Fortnightly Carer's Allowance does not keep pace with actual living costs. This financial gap is one of the structural reasons carers leave the system, compounding the shortage.

The "Supporting Families Changing Futures" Reform Trajectory

Queensland's current system is still operating under the reform agenda triggered by the 2013 Carmody Review, which identified an over-reliance on statutory removal rather than earlier family support. The decade-long reform program has increased investment in family preservation services, but the number of children in care has continued to rise — indicating that the structural pressures driving families into crisis (poverty, housing instability, domestic violence, substance use) have not reduced at the same pace.

The 2026 Commission of Inquiry into Child Safety is examining whether the current model is working and what systemic changes are needed. Its findings will shape Queensland's child protection system for the next decade. Prospective carers who enter the system now will be operating within a period of significant structural transition.

What the Statistics Mean for Prospective Carers

The numbers point to two clear realities. First, children in Queensland need carers — urgently and at scale. Second, the system asks a great deal of the carers who step forward, in terms of financial commitment, emotional resilience, and bureaucratic navigation, while not always providing adequate support in return.

None of this should be read as a reason not to foster. It should be read as a reason to go in prepared: knowing the financial realities, understanding the support structures available, and having a clear-eyed sense of what placement type suits your household.

The Queensland Foster Care Guide gives you the grounded, Queensland-specific preparation that official government resources don't provide — including what the statistics mean in practice for a new carer navigating their first placement.

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