The Pathways of Care Longitudinal Study (POCLS) is funded and managed by the New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services (FACS). It is the first large-scale prospective longitudinal study of children and young people in out-of-home care (OOHC) in Australia. Information on safety, permanency and wellbeing is being collected from various sources. The child developmental domains of interest are physical health, socio-emotional wellbeing and cognitive/learning ability.

In this paper, the authors address the issue of out-of-home care placement stability among the 1,285 children and young people who completed the Pathways of Care Longitudinal Study (POCLS) baseline interview (Wave 1).