Child Safety staff exodus leaves kids at risk, Opposition says

New figures highlight the alarming churn rate for some of the state’s most important workers, with child safety officers walking off the job at increasing rates as their work gets harder and busier.

Child safety officers are walking off the job at increasing rates as their work gets harder and busier.

Newly released figures highlight the alarming churn rate for some of the state’s most important workers, revealing the northern Queensland attrition rate is more than 27 per cent, 26 per cent in central Queensland and nearly 20 per cent in the southeast.

Rates have worsened across the board since 2018-19.

Opposition Child Protection spokesman Amanda Camm said a turnover rate of almost 30 per cent left too much room for error and no consistency of oversight to ensure children were protected.

“The risk is children will fall through the cracks,” she said.

Ms Camm said the exodus suggested the government was “losing control of child safety”.

“The numbers of Child Safety Officers leaving their jobs, particularly in Central Queensland and the Far North, is alarmingly high,” she said.

Children Minister Leanne Linard. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

But Children Minister Leanne Linard said the rates were not dissimilar to those experienced by child protection agencies across the country.

She said the government appreciated the hard work and dedication of child safety officers, entrusted with assessing, intervening in and managing families where children are at risk.

There were 11,065 children in state, out-of-home care as at June 30 last year.

“Data from 2020-21 shows continued demand pressure and increasing complexity in the child protection system as Queensland families respond to the continued economic and social pressures of Covid-19,” Ms Linard said.

“In 2020-21, the Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs received more than 134,000 reports; that is one report every four minutes.

“Child protection investigations commenced in the last year are up 2.3 per cent compared to 2019-20.

“Families coming into contact with the system are facing more complex issues than ever before.”

That included three quarters of families experiencing either family violence, drug and alcohol abuse of a current or previous history of mental illness.

The latest 2020 Working for Queensland survey of child safety staff found four in five felt positive about their job and two thirds felt good about their ability to “make a difference” in the community.

But 44 per cent said they were overloaded with work, a third felt “burned out” and more than a quarter said their work had “a negative impact on their health”.

The Government is still to release the overdue Child Death Review Board annual report, which examines 55 deaths of children known to the department last year.