FORMER frontline staff have slammed the Youth Hope pilot program for young people at-risk, saying they were swamped by crises which they lacked the expertise to deal with.
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Suicidal teens, sexually abused children and violent, drug-addicted parents were among the clients referred to the program when it was launched in in the Hunter in 2014.
Ex-staffers of Allambi Care say their caseloads and stress levels at that time were extremely high and they felt “out of their depth’’ on a regular basis, operating without risk assessment tools, or promised clinical support.
Documents obtained by the Newcastle Herald show that, during the first three months of the program, at least three different members of Allambi staff raised issues relating to a lack of clinical support and training, as caseloads climbed past the recommended six to eight families per case worker.
Early planning documents said the service would operate at a “consistent level of intensity” of 100 clients per annum, but that target was shifted to 101 clients concurrently.
Allambi Care CEO Simon Walsh has refuted claims that the service was swamped, or that workers were ill-equipped.
“If you are only looking at early 2014 documents, this was a time when the program was in its infancy and we were in the early implementation phase,” he said.
There was a phase-up period, he said, to accommodate the ‘’expected challenges that come up when implementing a new program’’.
The pilot program aims to divert children aged 9-15, identified by Family and Community Services (FACS) as being “at risk of significant harm”, away from child protection and out-of-home care and into early intervention services run by non-government organisations.
However, workers say NGOs were thrown in the deep-end, receiving referrals for cases that require government-level intervention by FACS.
During the first year of its delivery in the Hunter in 2014, young case workers in their early 20s, with little life experience and no child protection training, on-the-job or otherwise, say they were given referrals to complex, high-needs cases beyond their capacity to manage.
Workers say they were signing off on safety plans without the input of a psychologist or a social worker, for “really high-risk situations”.
“At the start we had no idea how at risk the kids were except for our own judgement which was not great, because we were all new to the work,” a former Allambi staff member said.
“Kids were put at risk. As an NGO it was not appropriate for us to be managing some of those families.”
There were not enough psychologists to support clients and staff, despite cases where children were suicidal, were “running off with convicted sex offenders”, and where sexual abuse was occurring regularly in the family home, the ex-staffer said.
The claims are backed up by another former Allambi Care youth hope worker who said that rather than providing intensive early intervention, they were chasing their tails.
“Our client loads kept increasing and increasing and, you get assigned a … child that fits within the 9-15 age range, but they have siblings and you have to balance these five or six kids and their different priorities … families who are not be able to afford any food at all that week ... where siblings harm their younger siblings to the point where police were involved.
“We were firefighting, it’s what they call it. We were always chasing our tail in terms of what was going on.’’
Mr Walsh has defended the Youth Hope program and its delivery, saying it has been well-received.
“Feedback from the department and its reviews indicate it is very happy with Allambi’s service provision,” he said. “The staff are all suitably qualified and receive on the job training. The fact is that these young people and their families are getting far more intensive support than in the past.
“Allambi Care’s staff do an outstanding job in what is very challenging and demanding work supporting vulnerable families. It is very difficult work but our staff are making a very real difference to those families and the community.”
A FACS spokesman said a “high level of training” was provided to help NGOs engage meaningfully with high risk families while maintaining a focus on the safety of children and young people.
“FACS meets regularly with service providers, such as Allambi, to manage caseloads, at-risk client referrals, and to ensure the needs of both service providers and children and young people are being properly met.”