Future employment of 350 people in jeopardy as leading charity cancels government contract

A leading charity has pulled out of its government contract to provide care for children removed from their families, leaving the jobs of 350 staff members in jeopardy.

The Churches of Christ building in Kenmore, Brisbane

A leading Queensland charity has pulled out of its contract with the government to deliver care to the state’s most vulnerable children over funding concerns and advocates warn it could be the first of many.

Churches of Christ had a longstanding relationship with the Queensland Government to provide residential care to children removed from their families and not placed with foster carers, but staff were informed via videoconference on Tuesday that it would be walking away from those contracts.

The Courier-Mail understands the future employment of up to 350 people is now in jeopardy but a spokeswoman for the one of the state’s largest child protection services said it had not made anyone redundant.

“Regrettably however, we have advised our staff, as well as the department of our decision to transition out of youth residential, supported independent living services and family support services,” she said.

“This was a hard decision for us, but a commercially necessary one.

Child safety advocate and PeakCare executive director Tom Allsop said without urgent intervention a significant number of organisations could exit the child and family sector over financial viability concerns.

“Funding of the child and family sector has not kept pace with increasing service costs and is threatening the ongoing viability of services,” he said.

“If this is not adequately addressed, it is possible this funding crisis will lead to a collapse in the non-government child and family care sector in Queensland resulting in risks to children and young people in need of protection and significant job losses.”

Churches of Christ headquarters in Kenmore, Brisbane

All staff will continue to be employed over the coming months as it helps the government transition the care to another, yet to be determined, provider.

“Every effort will be made to explore alternative employment opportunities for impacted staff,” she said.

“We do know that workers in the child protection sector are in high demand, and we are confident that there are considerable employment opportunities for people with this highly valuable skillet.”

Churches of Christ will still provide foster and kinship care services.

It comes as The Courier-Mail revealed on Wednesday that the state government had spent over $420,000 per child in just one year of residential care.

Nearly 1700 children were housed last year for a total cost of more than $709m, with one child costing the government $1.95m in a single year.

Advocates have long lamented the state’s dependence on residential care, with Queensland having the highest rate of kids kept in the houses staffed by youth workers in the country

Child Safety Minister Craig Crawford said the safety and wellbeing of the young people living in residential care services run by Churches of Christ across the state was his main priority.

“We are working with these young people to ensure their care arrangement meets their needs for a safe place to live, and to make the transition as smooth as possible,” he said.

“We remain committed to building a strong service system that offers quality and choice to children and their families, and our regional teams will work with Churches of Christ to support children, services and staff through this next phase.”

Mr Allsop said the community needed to be confident there would be no impact on the care being provided to children and families.

Originally published as Future employment of 350 people in jeopardy as leading charity cancels government contract