210 NSW child protection caseworkers – or 9% of the total workforce – are currently absent due to workers compensation claims, further fuelling a crisis in which four out of five children identified as being at “risk of serious harm” are not being seen.
The damming statistic exacerbates the problem of 233 positions (or 10% of the total workforce) being vacant and advertised.
This represents 19% of the child protection workforce, or one in five.
An unknown number of workers are also absent due to long-term sick leave, which anecdotal evidence indicates is also very prevalent (these figures are not included in the 19%).
The real figure for positions unfilled on any given day could be one in four, more like 25%.
Some towns like Coonamble, Walgett and Wilcannia have no child protection caseworkers at all.
45% of child protection caseworkers leave employment within the first 2 years and the figure increases to 63% in the case of Aboriginal child protection caseworkers.
This has led to a situation where only one in four kids reported to child protection services as at risk of serious harm (ROSH) are being seen by a child protection caseworker.
The department’s own data shows last year, 113,668 Children and Young People were reported as at ROSH in NSW with only 25,899 of them seen – that is 23% of all ROSH reports.
Right now if cases are allocated they are the most serious and will likely lead to removals, as there simply isn’t enough staff to intervene early so as to keep children with their families.
Public Service Association NSW General Secretary Stewart Little said the problem was now unsustainable by any measure.
“This is now a full scale exodus. Burnt out and underpaid child protection workers are rushing for every exit and the poor caseworkers left behind can’t see 80 per cent of identified at-risk kids,” Mr Little said.
“This is now a full-scale social disaster in NSW and it requires an emergency response from government. How many of these at-risk kids being ignored are getting hurt right now? How much childhood trauma is mounting in this state because we’ve ignored this problem and allowed it to fester?
“Because this misery happens in places most of us can ignore, we just turn a blind eye. It’s morally unjustifiable.
“The solution is simple and it’s needed urgently. The Minns Government needs to immediately raise pay and reduce workloads by hiring more staff.
“Child protection workers are degree-qualified professionals doing one of the very most important jobs we have. But the former government’s wages cap has squeezed them out and the stress and trauma of their jobs are just impossible to bear for most.
“This is a legacy of the NSW Coalition government’s wages cap which suppressed salaries for professional frontline workers for more than a decade, that’s why the child protection sector is in crisis.
“Child protection services are already severely under-resourced, let alone when you start talking about more than 20 per cent of the workforce being missing.”
