It's time to put the kids first
SENIOR NSW Government officials have admitted "red tape" is stopping face-to-face DOCS visits.
News
Don't miss out on the headlines from News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
SENIOR NSW Government officials have admitted "red tape" is stopping caseworkers from undertaking urgent face-to-face visits to neglected children in troubled homes.
Community Services chief executive Annette Gallard told staff in a leaked memo obtained by The Sunday Telegraph the department was battling to overcome red tape and hold-ups in court so workers could "help reach more cases".
The comments came as the Ombudsman also ordered a fresh investigation into the handling of child protection.
Ms Gallard sent the note to staff after the revelations in The Sunday Telegraph last week that fewer children at risk were getting direct help.
She told workers another 239 new caseworkers would be hired in the next six months.
After The Sunday Telegraph report last week, Ombudsman Bruce Barbour has also demanded answers.
Angry at the neglect exposed in confidential documents, Mr Barbour said he would investigate why children at risk of harm were not getting face-to-face help.
Changes introduced last year after the Wood inquiry into DoCS were supposed to improve the care of children in troubled homes.
"I've put the Government and Community Services on notice," Mr Barbour told The Sunday Telegraph.
"We will be looking very closely this year at how well Community Services is responding to matters they remain responsible for following the Wood inquiry and how successfully they're interacting with families and direct assessments of children at risk.
"We want to see if the systems in place since the Wood inquiry are actually making an improvement on the ground.
"High risk should equal a home visit and it doesn't look as though it is. That's what we'll be looking at this year."
Mr Barbour also said he knew to be true a report in The Sunday Telegraph last week that red tape and paperwork were stopping caseworkers from seeing children face-to-face.
He said it was an issue he had also come across in reviewing deaths of children known to Community Services.
"Time and time again in reviewing a death, the paperwork is fine, but no one has made an assessment on the ground and, if the caseworker is not sighting the child, they can't get a proper sense of what's going on," he said.
The Wood inquiry introduced a raft of changes and an injection of $750 million to prevent a repeat of horrific child deaths that Community Services could have prevented.
Reforms introduced in its wake were intended to increase face-to-face contact with at-risk children, but a report leaked to The Sunday Telegraph revealed a 13 per cent drop in direct interventions and assessments of children at most risk of harm.
"The statistics in that report would never have been released. Why aren't these statistics reported quarterly so we can see what they are doing?" Dr Sammut said.
Minister for Community Services Linda Burney confirmed the drop in completed assessments of the highest risk children and blamed caseworkers having to adjust to new systems despite a halving of reports to the Helpline after the threshold of harm was raised to 'significant harm' to cull re-reporting of the same children.
"We already knew who the most vulnerable children were because they made up half of the calls and the re-reports were being made time and time again because nothing was being done, DoCS were not acting so there is no excuse for what is happening now," Dr Sammut said.
He said the Wood Inquiry changes had wasted $750 million.
