CHILD PROTECTION WORKERS IN LAUNCESTON ARE MEETING TODAY TO VOTE ON TAKING INDUSTRIAL ACTION IN RESPONSE TO UNSAFE CASELOADS
HACSU Assistant Secretary Robbie Moore said that HACSU Members working for Child and Youth Services are attending a meeting today at 1.15pm to decide the next steps in their campaign to provide protection for the State’s children.
“The people who work in Child Protection know that children deserve to be safe. But our children cannot be kept safe when the workloads of the people who provide protection are so high.
“The dedicated professionals in Child Protection – particularly those in the North of the state – have the highest case-loads in Australia.
“Overloading those who work so hard to protect our vulnerable children is unsafe, unsustainable, and unacceptable.
“Despite taking their case for caps on their caseloads to the Tasmanian Industrial Commission, the dedicated Child Protection staff continue to be frustrated by management failing to take proper steps to fix what has been described as a ‘child protection crisis’.
“These hard working, dedicated professionals have been seeking reasonable caps to their caseloads for over a decade, and nothing has changed.
“They have used every method available to force government to take child protection seriously – and the only choice now left for them is industrial action.
“Children are in danger when there are not enough skilled staff to protect them.
“Those who provide protection to our at risk children are calling on the government to commit to safe workloads so that the most vulnerable children in Tasmania can be protected.”
BACKGROUND …
CHILD PROTECTION CASELOAD CRISIS
In response to dedicated, highly skilled and overworked Child Protection staff consistently enduring the highest caseloads in Australia, the following resolutions have been voted upon by HACSU Members who work in Child and Youth Services in Launceston.
HACSU members refer to the ongoing dispute regarding workloads and specifically the claim for maximum caseload numbers for Child Protection Workers.
We advise that we can no longer accept the failure of Children and Youth Services to adequately address our concerns, which has created a deep level of frustration and anxiety to Members.
For the safety of staff and the children in our care this meeting resolves that until such time as a resolution has been reached to address our concerns the following work bans be implemented from start of business 30 September 2015.
1) The following maximum caseloads shall apply;
Intake – maximum case load of 20 families
Response – maximum case load of 6 families
Case management – maximum case load of 15 children
Out of Home Care – maximum case load of 15 households.
This issue is the main concern driving the recent TIC application made by staff at Child Protection. These dedicated professionals have been seeking ‘caps’ for more than ten years. The fundamental logic behind this resolution is that there is only so much work that any Child Protection Worker can do in a shift, and management continually seeks to increase workloads well beyond the maximum that is safe for children and healthy for the staff working to keep them safe. These numbers reflect case load numbers that the experienced staff in child protection believe are the maximum they can safely undertake, and still produce quality work with the best outcomes for our most vulnerable children.
2) It is resolved that “Case and Care Plans” cease to be devised during any period that workers have an excess of the maximum case load number.
“Case and Care Plans” are generally believed by experienced professionals working in Child Protection to be a process management deems to be ideal. These plans are time consuming to complete and bring very little (if any) benefit to clients or carers. They are used by the management as a significant KPI and yet mean little to those people who work at the coal face of Child Protection.
3) It is resolved that “Child Sighting” requirements be suspended during periods that workers have an excess of the maximum case load number.
Child sightings are important, but children on long term, stable orders do not need six weekly “sightings” in order to ensure their safety. The best person to recognise how often a child needs to be sighted is the Child Protection staff member working with a particular child. Many children on long term orders do not need to have a meeting with their Child Protection case worker every six weeks, and when safety plans are in place a child can easily ask to meet with their case worker. The arbitrary requirement of government that children ‘must’ be sighted every six weeks when on long term orders is time consuming and unnecessary where the child’s placement is stable.
4) It is resolved that a ban occur on the moving of cases from one worker to another, without the approval and consent of the worker responsible.
Management plans to ease ‘team’ backlogs by the forcible removal of cases involving children on long term orders. Their intention is to send those cases to workers from other areas, in order to make room for new cases. This is a poorly devised plan, which is clearly not in the best interests of the child. It fails to take into consideration the sometimes significant relationships established over time between a child and his or her case worker.
5) It is resolved that Child Protection work, including investigations and assessments, shall not be outsourced to any non-Child Protection office.
Management also plans to cover up some of the work load issues created in other areas of the state by outsourcing cases to other non-child protection areas, this includes State Services agencies such as adoptions, and even external Non-Government Organisations. This places a child at significant risk, as they face having investigations and assessments completed by workers who do not have the skills, training or experience to complete the work. Even more concerning is the fact that these external workers are not authorised under the relevant legislation to carry out such assessments.
6) It is resolved that a ban shall be put in place of the involuntary imposition of work from one child protection office to another (such as Intake to Response).
Staff from ‘Intake’ will be instructed that they will be completing ‘Response’ investigations, and ‘Response’ staff will complete Case Management tasks. This creates a demarcation dispute between the roles of various offices. These highly skilled professional child protection workers are in their various teams for expertise, training and experience. ALL teams are acting with significant heavy workloads. Forcing people to do work from other teams is both unfair and unproductive.
7) Members will wear and distribute campaign materials and will hold discussions with the media and public regarding the dispute.
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