Families SA puts abuse report line on hold to clear backlog

FAMILIES SA workers were told to leave callers to the agency’s abuse report line on hold for at least an hour so they could focus on clearing a backlog of written reports, The Advertiser can reveal.

• Families SA may hire non-social workers to abuse reports
• Half of calls to Families SA abuse hotline are unnecessary
• More than 15,000 calls to Child Abuse line go unanswered
• About 1000 calls lodged are unchecked at any one time
• Families SA’s call centre under pressure as reports of suspected abuse grow

FAMILIES SA workers were told to leave callers to the agency’s abuse report line on hold for at least an hour so they could focus on clearing a backlog of written reports, The Advertiser can reveal.

Workers were given a direction last week to focus, during day shifts, on assessing electronic reports lodged online, ahead of calls to the Child Abuse Report Line.

They raised concerns that the change in policy could lead to serious cases being missed as callers hung up in frustration.

Late yesterday, Families SA senior management all but conceded the directive was given.

“Resources were not allocated correctly on these shifts,” Education and Child Development Department child safety chief Etienne Scheepers said in a statement to The Advertiser.

“I have instructed staff that phone notifications are to be prioritised and resources allocated to minimise call waiting times.

“A 60-minute wait is not acceptable and we sincerely apologise to any notifiers who have been kept on hold.”

Department chief executive Tony Harrison this morning confirmed call centre staff had been told to leave phone calls on hold but said the instruction had since been reversed.

“We did have a situation last week where a supervisor at the team level was trying to balance, trying to do the catch-up with electronic notifications, the backlog, but also keep the telephones going as well and there was information provided, instruction provided, to actually hold some of the telephones for a period of time whilst they were managing electronic backlogs,” Mr Harrison told FIVEaa radio.

“Once that was brought to my attention on Friday, I gave a strict instruction through to my people that that is not appropriate, will not happen, and it was undone immediately.

“What is happening is some people are getting so frustrated that they’re hanging up the telephone and we can’t tolerate that.

“We really need to be able to answer those telephones very quickly and get to the information.

“At all times the telephones must take priority.”

Mr Scheepers told FIVEaa that the supervisor who gave the instruction would not be disciplined.

He said it was “well-intentioned” but resulted in an “inappropriate use of resourcing”.

Families SA call centre staff have been under increasing pressure to deal with mounting reports of suspected abuse or neglect, amid heightened community concern over child welfare.

Tens of thousands of phone calls are going unanswered and about a thousand electronic reports remain unchecked.

The public sector union, which represents Families SA staff, has condemned the directive to make callers wait and called for urgent alternative solutions.

“The direction to call centre social workers on day shift to only answer the phones once the callers have been on the phone for one hour is shameful,” Public Service Association general secretary Jan McMahon said.

“The crisis in Families SA has reached a point where the juggling of pressure points is leaving highly vulnerable children at risk.

“The bottom line is there are clearly not enough social workers to clear the huge backlog of electronic reports, while keeping up with real-time reports to the call centre.”

Ms McMahon said there was “an immediate need for more social workers”.

“The response to any one of those reports could potentially be the difference between life and death for a child,” she said.

There were 40,074 calls made to the call centre last financial year, and 20,811 notifications to the e-CARL system.

The average waiting time to make a report by phone has grown from almost 11 minutes to more than 20 minutes.

A call by The Advertiser to the hotline remained on hold for an hour and 20 minutes. The Advertiser called the hotline only once, so as not to tie up scarce resources.

Other callers have reported waiting up to two hours.

In September, The Advertiser revealed that almost 86,000 calls had gone unanswered over the past four financial years, as waiting times have grown and more callers become frustrated and hang up.

The electronic system is mostly used by professionals legally required to report suspected abuse or neglect, such as police, doctors or teachers.

Mr Harrison said e-CARL was for “less serious notifications” and if a child was in immediate danger people should ring police.

Earlier this month, The Advertiser reported there was a backlog of about 1000 concerns lodged through e-CARL.

Questioned in Parliament last week, Education and Child Development Minister Susan Close could not confirm how many electronic reports remained unchecked.

Dr Close said the number of reports to e-CARL had “increased dramatically over fairly recent times”.

“What we have is a situation where the numbers have escalated and outstripped our immediate capacity to deal with them in a timely fashion,” she said.

“What we are doing at present to try to manage that issue is filling some (staff) vacancies.

“It is extremely difficult for that team, who work very hard, to keep up.”

Families SA has hired 135 new social workers, supervisors or residential carers over the past 13 months and transferred 289 internal staff to more permanent roles to address under-resourcing.

The agency has also pledged to hire 10 “civilians” to answer calls to the phone hotline, working to a script, and produce reports for social workers to assess later but the trial would not cover electronic reports.

Opposition child protection spokeswoman Rachel Sanderson said it was “absolutely ridiculous” to instruct call centre workers to ignore people for an hour when they were trying to report suspected abuse or neglect.

“They’re just shifting the problem, they’re not solving anything,” she said.

“There will be more people hanging up. It’s totally irresponsible.”

Instead, Ms Sanderson said Families SA should hire more staff to meet demand or call on existing staff to process online reports during overtime.

“Electronic notifications — they could be done at midnight, or on the weekends, if needed,” she said.

Off the hook

July, 2013: Debelle royal commission report into sexual abuse in schools recommends Families SA online abuse reporting system (e-CARL) be expanded.

July 25, 2015: Average waiting time to use CARL phone line is 20 minutes, 16 seconds.

September 1: The Advertiser reveals almost 86,000 calls to the CARL hotline went unanswered in past four financial years. Families SA pledges to hire 10 “civilians” to answer calls.

October 21:The Advertiser reveals half calls to CARL hotline are about minor concerns. Families SA pledges public campaign to educate people about neglect and abuse.

October 23: The Advertiser reveals about 1000 concerns logged using e-CARL remain unchecked at a time.