What: Child protection caseworkers strike
When: 12.30pm
Where: Across NSW, (in Lismore at 21 Conway Street, Lismore (across the road from Janelle Saffin’s office)
Why: Child protection caseworkers strike over over child safety
Contact: Rebecca Reilly 0419 980 503
Press Release:
Child protection workers strike over child safety
Child protection caseworkers will strike and protest outside Community Services Centres across NSW at noon over unacceptable risk to children in NSW.
Only 1 in 5 kids reported to child protection services as at Risk Of Serious Harm (ROSH) are being seen by child protection caseworkers. That means 4 in 5 kids are unseen.
Child protection caseworkers are using ‘Child Protection Week’ to call out the crisis in child protection.
Minister for Families and Communities Kate Washington herself recently described the NSW child protection system as “broken” on the ABC’s 7.30 program.
The department’s own data shows in the last year (the four quarters ending March 31) of the 18,644 Children reported as at ROSH in the Mid North Coast, New England and Northern NSW district only 2,512 of them seen - that is only 13% of all ROSH reports (the worst in the state)
Right now if cases are allocated they are the most serious and will likely lead to removal of kids, as there simply isn’t enough staff to intervene early so as to keep children with their families.
Child protection caseworkers report chronic understaffing and staff burnout.
One in ten child protection caseworker positions in NSW are unfilled.
On top of this 210 NSW child protection caseworkers - or 9% of the total workforce - are currently absent due to workers compensation claims, mostly due to psychological injury.
This represents 19% of the child protection workforce, or 1 in 5.
So of the 2333 child protection caseworker positions in NSW only 1,867 have their feet under the desk on any given day.
An unknown number of workers are also absent due to long-term sick leave (these figures are not included in the 19%). The real figure of staff absent from work on any given day is often 1 in 4, or 25%.
Some child protection offices have no staff, including Wilcannia, Walgett and Coonamble.
The child protection caseworkers that are left are coping with the extra workload of colleagues who have left.
Child protection caseworkers are demanding Minister for Families and Communities Kate Washington and the Minns Government immediately:
- Recruit another 500 caseworkers
- Give caseworkers an immediate and substantial pay rise
- De-privatise foster care
Kate Washington herself recently described the NSW child protection system on the ABC’s 7.30 as “broken” adding "every year we are recruiting 500 new caseworkers but we aren't able to keep them".
Children neglected by the system are now suing NSW in record numbers. In 2019 there were 73 kids suing the NSW Government in the Supreme Court for failure to protect them against child sexual abuse, in 2024 that number has increased to 687. The NSW taxpayer will be losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year in years to come if we don’t fix this.
Only last week Minister Washington gave the 100 most senior managers in the state’s child protection system a ‘dressing down’ telling them she saw “vindictiveness and retaliation towards caseworkers”.
Premier Chris Minns needs to intervene, said PSA General Secretary Stewart Little.
“Kids in NSW are now being neglected by the very system meant to protect them, I can’t be clearer than that,” said Mr Little.
“The most vulnerable kids in NSW are at risk of abuse because one in four child protection caseworkers are not at their posts.
“Let’s all agree child protection caseworkers have amongst the toughest jobs in the state, deciding whether to take babies out of parents arms.
“They are frontline heroes up there with cops, ambos and firefighters.
“The previous NSW Government artificially deflated child protection caseworkers wages for 12 years with its unfair public sector salary cap, so their wages went backwards, remember to do this deeply emotionally challenging job you need a four year uni degree.
“Simultaneously they dismantled the foster care system and replaced it with a patchwork of for-profit and not-for-profit outfits to look after kids taken from their parents.
“So they took a system which provided family like environments for children removed from their mum and dad and replaced it with a system which will see over 435 kids going to sleep tonight in hotels, motels and caravan parks around NSW supervised by labour hire workers on rotating eight hour shifts.
“This is not a situation any child should be in.
“We know this new system is costing the NSW taxpayer $300 million a year more and is catastrophic for kids under its care.
“One child cost the taxpayer $3 million in one year living in hotels and motels and the minimum cost for a kid in a hotel is $1.5 million a year.
“In some cases that has led to the kind of rorts we’ve seen in the NDIS.
“One non-government provider received $18,096 a week to care for two boys who went hungry and had no winter clothes as the provider sub-contracted their care to another provider for $160 a week.
“Some residential non-government providers (which includes for-profit and non-profit providers) have vacancies at residential facilities of 30% but their contracts mean they get paid whether they take kids or not.
“Seeing this ‘shadow bureaucracy’ develop in child protection, NSW’s most experienced child protection caseworkers have naturally moved to these providers because they offer better pay and conditions and less high-needs work.
“To be fair the current NSW government didn’t create this mess but it’s up to them to fix it.
“The Minns Government has taken back control of the maintenance of its 95,000 public housing properties, and so it should with child protection, this is no place for the private sector.
“While he’s at it Chris Minns should give all 2000 odd child protection caseworkers a $10,000 pay bump like the PM did recently with early childhood educators, except instead of costing $3.6 billion it’ll only cost about $30 million.
“Child protection caseworkers are passionate about their work, and they want the people of the Mid North Coast, New England and Northern NSW districts to know no urgent child protection responses will be impacted during their strike, and that skeleton staffing will be maintained, but they are desperate.
“Don’t say you haven’t been warned, child protection caseworkers are forgoing a day’s pay today to let everyone in NSW know the situation is dire and they need help.
Child Protection caseworkers will walk off the job and protest outside the Lismore Community Services Centre 21 Conway Street, Lismore (across the road from Janelle Saffin’s office) at 1pm, media are welcome to attend.
Contact: Rebecca Reilly 0419 980 503
