A toddler with an STD, baby with broken bones: A day inside SA’s Child Abuse Report Line call centre

Day and night, SA’s child abuse call centre staff are the first responders for kids experiencing unimaginable cruelty. This is what happens in one of the state’s toughest jobs.

The call seems minor at first – a report about a small bruise on the stomach of a two-month-old baby.

But to the team in the state’s child abuse call centre it is a red flag worth investigating.

Social workers are dispatched urgently to join police at the infant’s home and, without a reasonable explanation from the parents, the baby is taken to hospital.

“We took baby in and baby had horrendous … internal injuries, fractures,” shift supervisor Tiina Mannik explains.

“If we hadn’t have done that this baby potentially may not be here today.”

It is one of so many cases that stick in the mind of the 30-year veteran of child protection in South Australia.

There’s also the call from health workers about a two-year-old child with a sexually transmitted disease, raising suspicions she had been abused.

Or the four-month-old baby and her mother who the team helped out of a violent household where police feared the woman would be strangled to death.

And the five neglected siblings rescued from a squalid home and drug-addicted parents.

“Nobody hears about those stories,” Ms Mannik tells the Sunday Mail during an exclusive tour of the call centre this week.

“It happens every weekend, every week we’re dealing with these matters that nobody hears about because we work out safety (for children) and we put plans in place.”

Staff working at the Child Abuse Report Line call centre. Picture: NCA Newswire/Emma Brasier

Every day hundreds of reports pour in through the Child Abuse Report Line. Those on the other end of the phone are the first responders, tasked with deciding which concerns to investigate.

In the past 12 months more than 61,000 calls have come through, and another 43,000-plus electronic reports were lodged by worried teachers, police officers, doctors, neighbours and family members.

The Department for Child Protection (DCP) has long faced criticism for failing to answer thousands of calls each year and reports of people waiting hours on hold.

Latest figures show 11,300 calls went unanswered in 2021-22 – although the department says about half of callers who hang up do so within five minutes, often because they are interrupted.

In the past seven years the number of staff has grown by more than 20 to 100. A call-back feature introduced in 2017is offered to all callers, and workers are assigned to ring back within two hours.

The phone system has recently been upgraded and the average wait time for those who hang on is now reported as 10 minutes and 25 seconds on the department’s website.

During a visit to the suburban 24-hour call centre this week – the first time such access has been granted to media – the Sunday Mail was given exclusive insight into the harrowing conversations those on the frontline are having every hour of every day.

In one shocking case multiple calls were received about a violent assault on a child – by their mother.

“A mum was using a clenched fist and punching her five-year-old to the stomach numerous times in public,” Ms Mannik says. Police had been called and, together, authorities were able to track down the woman.

On one call heard by the Sunday Mail, a childcare worker rings to reluctantly report sexualised behaviour by a little boy.

He is regularly asking other children to pull their pants down or to touch his bottom.

The caller is unsure if this is normal developmental behaviour – toddlers are curious and exploring at that age – or a sign of something more sinister.

“He hides his face and will run away and doesn’t want to talk about it,” the caller says.

They had already spoken to the boy’s mother, who was surprised and “doesn’t know where this would be coming from”.

Initially the case is recorded as what’s known as a notifier concern – not meeting the threshold for an investigation or further action by DCP.

However, redacted case notes seen by the Sunday Mail show more calls were received about the boy in the following months, as the behaviour escalated.

Call centre staff decide the case should be referred to a DCP office for investigation within 10 days in case the boy’s behaviour is a sign of sexual grooming or abuse.

On another call a worried teacher rings about an eight-year-old student who they fear is “unsafe at home” where an older sister is using drugs, threatening violence and self-harming. The younger girl has been missing school and the teacher has noticed she has a persistent infection, with sores on her hands and face.

“That’s just a lot for a little girl … if she’s in the house with those younger siblings and this is all happening,” the teacher says.

“It’s not great if she’s not coming to school and things aren’t great at home.”

While on the phone, the call centre worker has access to the DCP system where they can search the family’s child protection history.

It becomes clear there have been reports made about the family – including the mother’s drug use during pregnancy and the older sister’s escalating violent and suicidal behaviour – dating back as far as 2014.

The call taker tells the teacher they will do an assessment of all the children in the home “because obviously they’re being exposed to this and it’s not a safe environment”.

The case is referred to a DCP office to be assigned to a social worker.

Child Protection Report Line supervisors Marisa Gentilcore and Tiina Mannik inside the call centre. Picture: NCA NewsWIRE/Emma Brasier

In a final call heard by the Sunday Mail, a distressed grandmother opens with a surprisingly blunt concession: “I’m concerned about my granddaughter. She’s 10 and her mother’s an ice user.”

She sounds despondent and nervous. “I’ve been putting this off,” she concedes.

“I had to call the police because she turned up and got abusive. I have to step in now.”

The young girl has been staying with her grandmother but things blew up when her mother returned to collect her – and the grandmother is worried she is going take the girl interstate.

“She loves her mum. She’s saying just because she’s using drugs doesn’t mean she’s a bad person – this is coming out of a 10-year-old’s mouth,” the grandmother confides.

The call taker adds notes to an already open file on the family, where reports about the girl missing school and the mother using drugs have been made in recent years.

They then refer the case to a DCP office for investigation within 10 days.

As she prepares to hang up, the grandmother sounds as if a weight has been lifted.

The busiest times for the call centre are usually between 8am and 9am and about 2.30pm and 6pm.

Child Abuse Report Line supervisor Marisa Gentilcore says high-profile cases – like the deaths of children known to the system – also prompt spikes in reports.

“That creates a bit of nervousness in the community, they want to make sure that they’ve met their obligations (to report),” says Ms Gentilcore, who also has three decades’ experience in the system.

The work is emotionally taxing on the staff but they are trained to elicit the important details.

“It’s not just about getting the information, we have to make an assessment of the risk to the child. That’s why we need the professionals,” Ms Gentilcore says.

“It’s a hard thing for notifiers to do, it’s not easy. You can feel their turmoil. We have to be empathetic and to understand how difficult it is for someone to make that phone call to us.”

This work is happening around the clock. Even in the middle of the night, when most South Australians are tucked in bed, there are between two and five staff still answering crisis calls, fielding requests from police at the scene of a domestic violence incident or a concerned doctor who has received an injured child in an emergency department.

They are waking up grandparents or aunties and uncles at midnight to ask if they will collect a child at risk, or placing calls to emergency foster carers.

On a typical weekend the after-hours team will usually attend four or five cases to assess or remove a child or put in place a safety plan.

“Being out at night … we’ve got the added complexity of the darkness. It’s challenging,” Ms Mannik explains.

If the phones aren’t ringing, the focus shifts to trawling through the eCARL submissions – written reports of concerns from mandated notifiers like teachers or police.

The amount of detail people provide varies wildly – from as little as a few words like “chronic school non-attendance” to more detailed descriptions like the person who found a young child in a toilet cubicle contemplating self-harm.

A large proportion of reports don’t lead to immediate action – they are deemed not to meet the threshold for investigation or removal.

Between 32,000 and 45,000 reports have been classed as a notifier concern each year since mid-2017.

“They’ll get a call that’s horrendous and then they’ll get one that’s little Johnny brought … a peanut butter sandwich to school and everyone’s allergic,” Ms Mannik says.

In these cases call-takers create a file for the at-risk child and advise the caller where else they might turn – a drug counselling service, school wellbeing officer or legal aid.

“We’ve got to work out what’s not ideal and what is abusive,” Ms Mannik says.

“It might not be great parenting but what other services could work with that family? For me as a supervisor I have to look at prioritising … what’s the most urgent?”