Service in crisis

By Melissa Meehan
DANDENONG child workers are stressed out and collapsing under the pressure after alarming revelations of a decline in the number of child protection staff in Victoria.
But the State Government says the front line of child protection workers has actually increased.
Opposition spokesperson for Community Services Mary Wooldridge said the safety of at-risk and abused children was being compromised as a result.
“The Department of Human Services 2008-09 Annual Report reveals Victoria has fewer full time equivalent child protection workers than last year because the government has done nothing to address chronic problems in retaining staff,” Ms Wooldridge said.
“After a decade of government inaction and neglect, the child protection workforce is in crisis and our most vulnerable children are the casualties.”
Community and Public Services Union (CPSU) acting branch secretary Jim Walton spoke to Star in July saying that Dandenong staff were collapsing due to anxiety and stress at work.
On Tuesday he said not a lot had changed.
“We have been negotiating with the government for the best part of two decades over these issues,” Mr Walton said.
“But the government says it costs too much to hire staff.”
Mr Walton said many child protection officers, throughout the state, were carrying caseloads two and a half times the department’s unofficial recommended average of 12 individual children.
“Our members are overworked; it’s causing them to get chronic fatigue, lack of sleep and other health problems,” he said.
“In Dandenong alone, there are 360 proven cases of child abuse of some sort not being seen to.”
The promised 200 extra workers the State Government announced last month will only scratch the surface of the 2000 unallocated cases awaiting assignment, he said.
“The department will continue to lose staff,” he said. “A year from today we will still be facing the same challenge.”
A government spoke-sperson said Victoria’s case workers dealt with multiple, highly complex cases and $77.2 million had been committed to boost the workforce and help keep Victoria’s most vulnerable children safe.
He said the package would deliver 200 new workers state-wide and more investment for measures including early intervention work, extra training, more principal practitioners and a specialist intervention squad.
Community Services Minister Lisa Neville said the extra funding would initially focus on areas of Victoria with high demand, with the immediate aim to reduce the number of cases without a full-time worker.
“In the long term it will also assist in keeping the skilled workforce,” she said.