Child protection workers can’t be ignored any longer
In addition to being underresourced and stretched too thin, child protection officers face the harrowing practice of having their concerns for children ignored without any real investigation ever taking place, writes Lauren Novak.
Assaults on children, parents using drugs, children missing weeks of school, families sleeping rough — these are the kinds of concerns child protection workers regularly field in South Australia.
Astonishingly they are also regularly dismissed without any real response.
No phone call to the parents or visit to the family home, no interviews with teachers, no attempt to put eyes on the child.
While the care factor is there, we’re constantly told there’s not enough staff, time or money to get to the thousands of kids facing these risks.
This appalling and persistent reality leaves them in danger and the workers who put their hand up to protect them in a constant state of anxiety about when the next child will slip through the cracks.
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Last week we were reminded of a case where these factors played out and the worst nightmare was realised.
Amber Rose Rigney, 6, and Korey Lee Mitchell, 5, were murdered, alongside their mother Yvette Rigney-Wilson by her then-partner Steven Graham Peet in May 2016.
Last week the State Ombudsman released a report which revealed repeated concerns were raised in the years before the murders that the kids were being exposed to drug use by their mother or left in the care of relative strangers.
Others warned they weren’t fed and on one occasion spent the night sleeping rough.
Of a string of 11 warnings, staff deemed about half did not meet the criteria for abuse or neglect because they were not serious enough or did not contain enough detail to act on.
One prompted an investigation. In the remainder workers acknowledged a risk but closed the files anyway. Policy is meant to forbid this in serious cases but, in practice, it happens with startling frequency.
The 2016 Nyland Royal Commission found the practice was “widely used” in cases that should have merited a response within five days.
Last year a different report by Ombudsman Wayne Lines described the number of cases closed without investigation — including “serious and compelling” cases — as “simply staggering” and warned it went against child-protection laws.
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The current Child Protection Minister Rachel Sanderson even said when in opposition she was shocked by the practice. Yet years later it is still happening.
In the past week people who know have described “horrific” and “heartbreaking” cases which have been shut without inquiry. Some say those outlined by the Ombudsman are at the “mild” end of the scale. The problem remains resourcing. But we can’t keep accepting this. Especially when children are dying.
Imagine the anxiety of people who make reports expecting something will be done. Or the anguish of workers making the call to close a case and crossing their fingers nothing worse happens.
The Child Protection Department says it has reduced the proportion of cases it closes without responding from about 60 per cent to 40 per cent. But the figures remain opaque, and it only takes one wrong call to close the wrong case and the consequences can be devastating.
Workers say more hands on deck are what they need, but this relies on finding more people willing to do this difficult work.
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The State Budget included a short-term injection of 37 social workers — but also set targets to cut 115 other roles. This decision is bewildering to those facing the deluge of reports on the frontline.
In a bid to ease the load, the department is trying to refer cases to other responders, like school wellbeing officers or NGOs. This means some “action” has been taken before it closes a case. And in the right scenario that could be enough. But serious cases mustn’t be palmed off to improve the figures.
Ultimately prevention is the answer, and there was some money in the Budget for early intervention with at-risk families, but this work takes time.
That’s something children in danger don’t have. If the risk posed to them by not acting isn’t enough incentive to make change, the Government is also on a timeline from Royal Commissioner Margaret Nyland, whose report called for the practice of closing cases without action to be phased out by 2021.
That day can’tcome soon enough.