Children sexually abusing other children in care has become a greater concern than adults inflicting the abuse, a report has found.
A report prepared for the royal commission into child abuse says efforts to prevent abuse by adult caregivers have succeeded to the point where incidents are likely to be detected if they occur.
However, researchers from the Parenting Research Centre and the University of Melbourne found that new measures are needed to deal with children who are sexually abusive or are "acting out" sexually on other children in out-of-home-care situations.
"The major focus of preventing child sexual abuse in out-of-home-care should be on efforts to prevent child-child sexual abuse rather than caregiver-child sexual abuse," the report, published on Monday, says.
"The vast majority of child sexual abuse in out-of-home-care currently appears to occur at a child-child level."
Out-of-home-care covers residential care, family group homes and home-based care such as foster care and care by relatives.
In other findings, the study, which was a review of 222 relevant research papers, found there was no rigorous evidence base for evaluating the effectiveness of various practices undertaken to combat child sexual abuse in care situations.
The paper said that while there is "a great deal of practice wisdom" guiding current practices, "there are very few existing studies that test which types of practices or programs decrease rates of sexual abuse".
The authors note that the overall rate of child sexual abuse is lower now than in the past but there is still an issue that must be dealt with by changes to policies and practices.
The report says plans need to be put in place that consider children's needs when being placed into care and therapy and monitoring needs to be in place for children at risk of being abusive.
However it also cautions that any new strategies must not make care cold and impersonal which would make it a less liveable and developmentally stimulating environment for vulnerable children.
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