Hunter kids at risk as harm goes unnoticed
THE number of children in the Hunter who are at risk of abuse or neglect continues to rise, but fewer of them are being seen by a case worker every year.
Across the Hunter about 42 children and young people are reported as being “at risk of significant harm” every day, a figure that has continued to increase every year since the Department of Family and Community Services began publishing the data in 2013.
And as the number of unfilled case worker jobs reaches its highest point since June 2014, the chance of an at-risk child being seen face-to-face by a professional is slimmer than ever.
According to the department’s figures only 21 per cent of children considered at risk of significant harm in the Hunter were seen by a case worker in 2016, the worst in the state.
A child is classified as being at risk of significant harm when concerns for elfare are deemed sufficiently serious to warrant a response by a statutory authority.
The government has tried to put a positive spin on the figures, Department secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter said that state-wide one in three at-risk children was being seen compared to one in five children six years ago, but Wallsend Labor MP Sonia Hornery said the continued slide in the Hunter showed it wasn’t being given priority.
“In the Hunter ... that is more than 11900 children [who went unseen],” she said.
Ms Hornery also slammed the increase in vacant case worker jobs, which rose to 7 per cent in the four months to March, up from 3 per cent in the previous quarter.
“The minister needs to prioritise keeping at risk children safe from harm by filling these vacancies immediately,” she said.
“We need to provide the best outcomes for our most vulnerable children.”
In March this year a parliamentary inquiry into the state’s child protection system found a system in crisis, describing the department as “ship that’s already sunk”, and called for the government to provide “a specific one off injection of additional funding” for evidence based prevention and early intervention services.
Greens upper house member David Shoebridge sat on the committee, he said the number of children being seen by caseworkers was “dangerously low”.
Mr Shoebridge said simply increasing the number of caseworkers in the Hunter was not sufficient, and called for the government to make a “massive investment” of $1 billion over five years into child protection in the June budget.
“You would need to increase the number of case workers in the Hunter five fold to make a difference,” he said.
“Instead we need to stop the number of families that are falling apart, we need to stop the number of kids spiraling into at risk status by getting in early and keeping families together.”
The government announced last year that it would seek to overhaul the system, and decrease the number of children in the state’s broken residential care system.
In April, the government announced $90 million to fund two evidence-based “intensive intervention programs”, aimed at keeping families together by addressing the causes of harm and trauma.
Mr Coutts-Trotter said it would mean “more families and children will be seen earlier”.