Children and family service agencies in the north are at crisis point due to falling numbers of state-funded child protection workers and steep rises in family violence reports.
A Community and Public Sector Union spokesman told Star Weekly the Department of Human Services had known since last December of serious shortfalls in staffing at its Preston office, where there have been complaints of occupational health and safety issues because of heavy caseloads.
The Preston office covers Hume- Moreland and the North East Melbourne catchment.
WorkCover had been called in to the Preston office after workload complaints, and its staff turnover was higher than elsewhere because of work pressures, the union spokesman said.
The spokesman said the largest staff losses were among level-4 practitioners, who undertake face-to-face casework with young people in unsafe and emergency situations.
“Numbers are down from 1347 EFT [effective full-time] in October 2013 to 1261 EFT by December, or 7 per cent statewide,” the spokesman said.
Victoria’s Community Services Minister Mary Wooldridge last week launched a statewide campaign to recruit additional senior child protection practitioners.
Contradicting the union, a spokesman for the minister said child protection staffing levels had improved under the current state government.
The spokesman referred to the Strengthening Risk Management program, which has been operating in Hume since 2011 and supports women and children experiencing extreme family violence.
This program is led by Berry Street Northern Family and Domestic Violence Services and involves Berry Street family violence workers, Victoria Police, child protection, Child FIRST, family support services and Hume council.
The state government has also announced a $30 million funding package to expand the Strengthening Risk Management program statewide, and its new model for integrated human services, Services Connect, aims to streamline services.
The new model is already being trialled at a number of sites, including the department’s Preston office, and will extend to Hume and Moreland later this month.
However, Whittlesea councillor and anti-family-violence campaigner Kris Pavlidis said there was a dire need for more child protection workers in the north.
She said rising rates of family violence in the community had increased pressure on council-run family services and the council was doing “all they could” to support those in need.
“But the council can’t do it alone; we need the assistance of state and federal governments to inject funding to build more culturally diverse social infrastructure to support families.”
