Victorian Child and Adolescent Monitoring System (VCAMS) updated

Overview

The Victorian Government is committed to ensuring that children are given high priority across all government policies, programs and activities to safeguard and improve their safety, health, development, learning and wellbeing.

The whole-of government Victorian Child and Adolescent Monitoring System (VCAMS) monitors and reports against the VCAMS Outcomes Framework (the Framework). Victorian government departments endorsed outcomes and indicators in four category areas (the child, family, community and society) which are known to be of most importance to the present and future lives of children.

In 2017, an external review of VCAMS was undertaken to enhance its usefulness and to adapt the VCAMS Framework in line with changes to measurement, data accessibility and usage that have occurred since its inception in 2006.

The review resulted in a reduction in the number of indicators, the four category areas remain unchanged and all changes were endorsed by the Children's Services Coordination Board.(opens in a new window)

To view the current framework, see: VCAMS Outcomes Framework (Revised) (DOCX, 32.3KB).

A concordance document: VCAMS Measures Concordance (Revised Framework to Original) (DOCX, 155KB) outlines the changes that have been made to the indicators in the Framework. You can review the previous Framework at VCAMS Outcomes Framework (Original) (DOCX, 1.16MB) (opens in a new window).

Data on children and young people

This page brings together data from across the Victorian Government to track the progress of children and young people against the VCAMS framework indicators.

The information is intended to support and inform evidence-based policy development, planning and collaboration at a local and state level. It also allows more informed decision making across government.

Data can be viewed for a range of geographic and demographic breakdowns (see the Information on indicators and sources for an overview of the breakdowns and years available for each indicator).

To access data for an indicator, expand the relevant domain below and click on the indicator you wish to view. A new window will open with a prompt to allow the spreadsheet containing the data to be downloaded.

Data sources

The data used to report against the VCAMS Framework are drawn from a range of Victorian Government departments as well as the Australian Bureau of Statistics and other research bodies.

For some indicators in the new framework, particularly in the ‘society’ category area, work is still required to identify or develop data sources that can be used for the measures.

Where data are not available for particular VCAMS indicators, alternative sources are provided to public sources of the same or similar information. Details and links to these sites are available in the VCAMS Outcomes Framework (Revised) (DOCX, 32.3KB) document and in indicator spreadsheets.

The Department of Education undertakes a rolling program of data collection. For more information about the department’s surveys and collections, see our data collections.

Findings from the department’s key data collections are published in summary reports:

The Victorian Government has plans and policy responses in place to ensure the best outcomes for children and young people. Details of relevant programs and policies are presented each year in the State of Victoria’s Children report(opens in a new window).