The Hodgman Liberal Government is committed to fixing Tasmania’s broken child protection system to better protect our most vulnerable children.
The Government has moved to immediately action all 11 recommendations made by the Acting Secretary of my Department following his report into North-West Child Protection Services (CPS)*.
Today, I am also announcing a significant redesign of the child protection system to deliver long-term sustainable improvement.
Immediately, we are establishing a Redesign Reference Group that will develop within six months a comprehensive redesign, from the bottom up.
Based on international best practice, the new model will fundamentally change the way we deal with families at risk and the way we apply protective intervention.
The group will be led by Professor Maria Harries, an Adjunct Professor at Curtin University and a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in Social Work and Social Policy at the School of Population Health at the University of Western Australia.
Dr Harries has extensive experience in examining Tasmania’s child protection system, having led the Legislative Amendments Review Reference Committee in 2012 and the Advocacy for Children in Tasmania Review in 2013.
Working with Dr Harries will be an experienced cross-agency team, including:
Their work will feed into the 2016-17 Budget process.
Tasmania has a long history of reviews and reports into the child protection system, particularly under the previous Labor and Labor-Green governments, but yet the State did not achieve the level of systemic, structural reform needed.
This Government will deliver that necessary reform.
We will continue, meanwhile, to implement initiatives aimed at boosting our support of Tasmania’s most vulnerable children and their families.
That includes the ongoing implementation of the Signs of Safety model, strengthening the Three and Under Review Panel, which ensures the regular review of cases of children under the age of three, and the recently finalised Vulnerable Babies and Infants Strategy.
* The 11 recommendations are:
1. North-West Intake practice must align with CPS standard procedures, such that:
a). Administration staff cease taking notifications and a system is put in place to allow all notifications to be referred and allocated to a Child Protection Intake Worker; and
b). Child Protection Workers are required to create and approve notifications so as to allow the incident to be created and an initial assessment commenced without the need to submit to a Team Leader.
2. Team Leaders and Managers are required (and trained) to use available data reports through CPIS and Qlickview to support the monitoring and management of workflow and staff activities.
3. The North-West Senior Quality and Practice Advisor undertake practice development work with the Intake team to build confidence and capacity in risk assessment and decision making.
4. All Intake staff undertake the Risk Assessment and Safety Planning training in the first instance with the view to further, more targeted, training being delivered if required.
5. There is an urgent review of the current supervision arrangements in place for Intake staff (in relation to the split of task and professional supervision) to ensure this is adequate and appropriate.
6. The appointment of the Community Based Team Leader (CBTL) is maintained and alternative arrangements are put in place if / when the CBTL is absent – so as to ensure that delays do not occur when Intake are referring matters to Gateway.
7. Engagement with internal and external services who have been noted to not be responsive to information requests by CPS should occur at a senior management level to ensure that expectations / agreements / processes are identified and confirmed – so as to ensure that Intake are able to receive and action external information as part of their risk assessment process.
8. Clear processes and expectations are developed to allow for the efficient and timely transfer of notifications from Intake to Response, and Response to Case Management.
9. The split location of Intake and Response is reviewed to ascertain whether the two teams can be co-located, following consultation, to encourage and require closer and more joined up work.
10. Further assessment of the level and type of support offered to manage poor performance is required.
11. Arrangements to be put in place to monitor progress on the implementation of these recommendations.
Recommendations 1-6 have been fully implemented, while recommendations 7-10 are currently being implemented.
The Government has also accepted recommendation 11, and this will form part of the Redesign Reference Group’s work.
The North-West Child Protection Services Report is available on the Department of Health and Human Services website at www.dhhs.tas.gov.au