‘I couldn’t tell him he wouldn’t get flogged again’: Child protection workers protest

WA Child Protection Minister Sabine Winton has been shouted down by an angry crowd of child protection workers protesting at Parliament House on Thursday afternoon.

The protest was made up of about 150 Department of Communities child protection workers who walked off the job to vent their frustration at the government over underresourcing and the record 1000 child protection cases that have not had a dedicated caseworker since December.

Child Protective Services workers walked off the job and to the steps of Parliament House on Thursday.Credit: Hamish Hastie

The protest heard from several caseworkers from around WA who delivered impassioned speeches about the dire state of the system.

This included South West child protection worker Maria Barry who said she could not guarantee children in the system would be safe.

“I feel incredibly sad, not for me, I feel incredibly sad for children,” she said.

“I feel incredibly sad for the little boy who was begging me to tell him that he wouldn’t have to go home to dad today because he would get flogged again, and I couldn’t tell him that wouldn’t happen.

“That is appalling that a little child is sitting in an office terrified.”

Barry said her profession was so underresourced that it was making children worse.

“We should be making it better, and we’re making it worse, and that is appalling,” she said.

“They are damaged further by the system they come into.”

Winton told the crowd she valued the work the workers did and wanted to continue working with the public sector union, the CPSU/CSA, to come up with tangible solutions to resourcing problems.

“I take your concerns seriously and I take your suggestions seriously. You are valued and you are heard, and I appreciate you,” she said.

Crowd members heckled Winton as she spoke with one worker yelling: “we want change, we don’t want a script, we want change.”

Winton said she wanted to grow the workforce and had directed the Department of Communities to prioritise ways to support the workforce.

CPSU/CSA secretary Rikki Hendon said in some Department of Communities district offices there were vacancies of up to 25 per cent due to staff burnout.

The CPSU/CSA recently accepted a 12.5 per cent pay increase from the government which included its child protection workforce but Hendon said the government needed more financial incentives to get workers into the sector.

She defended accepting the pay offer while workers were trying to get better conditions.

“It was important to get baseline pay increases across the public sector, we know that more needs to happen to attract and retain child protection staff in this space, and so that’s an ongoing discussion, and that’s something that can still be actioned,” she said.