A new report has shown it is taking about 20 per cent longer to start and finish child safety investigations in Tasmania than a year earlier, as one worker says staff are struggling to keep on top of priority cases.
Foster parent Chaya Rainbird says she is acutely aware of the ongoing problems in Tasmania's child protection system.
It was her experiences as a foster child that led her to becoming a foster parent in the state's north, wanting to help vulnerable children.
She now engages regularly with child safety case workers, and despairs at their significant workload pressures.
But Ms Rainbird said that she and the workers believe the pressure was ultimately having the greatest impact on at-risk children.
"I just think they are so overworked, and they're not just balancing folders and paperwork, these are children's lives, these are families' lives," Ms Rainbird said.
"And for some, this is generational."
New data from the Productivity Commission has highlighted how child safety investigations were taking longer to start and finish in Tasmania, which unions and opposition MPs say is a sign of understaffing.
Ms Rainbird said there needed to be a change in attitude to improve the system.
"The way we look at healthcare, and teaching, this is an essential service. What [child safety workers] do, protecting families, they're protecting children, they're also protecting those children's futures," she said.
"Whatever the budget is, there needs to be more.
"We need to continue looking at child protection as, not just protecting children for a couple of years, but protecting their connection to the world, their connection to family, and their connection to the future as well."
A child safety worker in the state's north said unallocated children in the system were being "fobbed off into email inboxes" as there were not enough workers to take on the cases.
The worker, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his employment, said the workforce could only take on the highest priority cases – involving notifications from police or health services that children are in imminent danger – meaning there was little capacity to support other children.
"Unless things are being sent to police, nothing is being dealt with urgently. Just today we've had Launceston CIB contact us about an incident that happened a few weeks ago," the worker said.
"We're just trying to keep on top of the highest priority cases. It's no longer about making sure every child has what they need to get on with life. The workload is just too high."
He said this has flow-on effects for at-risk children living in out-of-home care.
"They could be in a situation where the carer is unwilling to care for a child anymore – of they're looking for respite – because the child is too high needs, but there's no one to adequately respond," the worker said.
He said it was common for new workers to only stay for days, or just a few weeks, before leaving due to the workload pressures.
They were similar concerns to those raised by Education Department social worker Kerri Collins during commission of inquiry hearings in May last year, who detailed how they were solely responding to critical incidents, rather than giving support to at-risk children.
The child safety worker said the situation had not changed since then.
Investigations taking longer
The time taken to start and finish child safety investigations grew significantly longer last financial year, compared with the year before.
According to the Productivity Commissions Report on Government Services for Child Protection in 2020-21, 44 per cent of investigations took 29 days or longer to start.
Last financial year, 2021-22, 55.7 per cent of cases took more than 29 days for investigations to start.
It also took longer to finish child safety investigations last financial year, with 64.5 per cent taking more than 90 days.
A year earlier that figure was 54.5 per cent.
In 2021-22, 84 per cent of allegations of child abuse or neglect were substantiated by investigations, and in the previous year the substantiation rate was 80 per cent.
Since 2020-21, Tasmania has measured the time to start an investigation from the date a decision was made to refer the matter to the Child Safety Service for a full child safety investigation, meaning it is difficult to compare with the data from earlier years.
The starting and finishing times for child safety investigations in Tasmania cannot be easily compared with other states and territories because each uses a different point to measure when an investigation starts.
'Terrible place to work'
Community and Public Sector Union acting general secretary Tom Lynch said the system was stuck in a cycle of high vacancies and overwhelming workloads.
"If you had sufficient staffing and you had good systems in place for your recruitment, you should be able to keep your staff in place," he said.
"At the moment, people leave because it's a terrible place to work."
A Tasmanian government spokesperson said its Strong Families Safe Kids reforms were delivering "positive outcomes" for vulnerable children.
"As a result of our reforms, more children are being cared for safely by their families and fewer children ending up in out-of-home care," the spokesperson said.
"Importantly, the Child Safety Service is almost fully staffed statewide, with many new staff coming on board following intensive recruitment activity."
