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So much neglect, and so few case workers

Date: October 23 2007

Adele Horin

AS THE Department of Community Services fields escalating reports of child abuse and neglect, hundreds of vacancies for key frontline staff have remained unfilled for months.

The south-west region of Sydney had unfilled vacancies for 55 DOCS case workers in August with the Campbelltown office short-staffed by 12. In the Hunter region 81 positions were unfilled.

"Even with a full complement of staff, it's a struggle," a worker said.

Staff instigated work bans last month out of frustration at the department's failure to fill vacancies, and other issues affecting workloads. The bans, which did not affect child protection work, were lifted after the department's director-general, Neil Shepherd, met union officials and agreed to expedite staff hiring.

The Minister for Community Services, Kevin Green, has admitted that DOCS received more than one report to its helpline about two-year-old Dean Shillingsworth, who was found dead in a pond last week.

Staff complain that despite the $1.2 billion funding boost for the department in 2002, workload pressures have intensified. And with the five-year funding package to run out mid-next year, not enough has been done to hire extra staff.

Staff recruitment is becoming a headache for all welfare agencies in a tight labour market. Meanwhile reports to DOCS of suspected abuse or neglect have risen from about 108,000 a year in 2000-01 to 240,000.

A report commissioned by DOCS last year claimed that at this rate at least 20 per cent of children would be reported for child protection concerns before they reached adulthood.

A major factor behind the increase is the mandatory reporting by police of children who witness domestic violence. Police are now the single biggest group of reporters to the DOCS helpline.

The child protection system is known by workers as "child protection by computer", according to a bulletin distributed last month by the Public Service Association, which represents DOCS workers.

However, some child welfare authorities doubt the figures on reports to DOCS represent an increase in the abuse or neglect of children. Jane Woodruff, the chief executive of the agency Burnside Uniting Care, said the focus on the number of reports misrepresented the size of the problem. "It is counting every phone call to the helpline. It is not the number of risk of harm reports."

Louise Voigt, the chief executive officer of Barnardos, the child welfare agency, said: "I don't think child abuse is worse than it was. I'm in my 60s and what now passes for serious child assault was routine when I was young. There is an increasing standard of what's acceptable - and rightly so."

Belinda Kotris, manager of the Family Support Service in Tamworth, said the incidence of young and/or ill-educated parents with few parenting skills and resources was "not getting any better".

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