The safety of Tasmania’s vulnerable children and young people is an absolute priority for the Tasmanian Government and we are doing all we can to further improve their safety and wellbeing and support the staff who look after our most vulnerable children.
The latest dashboard shows the number of children referred to child safety for investigation and the number of children in out of home care continue to trend downwards.
This clearly demonstrates the desired impacts of our $51 million Strong Families, Safe Kids reforms are being realised, with more families receiving the support they need to provide safe care and fewer children requiring statutory child safety intervention and out of home care.
The numbers of Children in Active Transition has tracked slightly higher but remains much lower than it was at the commencement of the Advice Referral Line in December 2018.
In all cases, if a child is assessed to be at immediate risk, they are allocated and seen within 24 hours, with less urgent cases also receiving a response while awaiting direct allocation.
The responses include referrals, information and support to families, visits, case conferencing and engaging with the Family Law Court when custody matters are being considered within that jurisdiction.
The Department has been working closely with staff in each region to look at strategies to meet demand, including bolstering response teams and Case Management with additional Child Safety Officers.
We have also bolstered capacity in the Intensive Family Engagement Program to allow 18 additional families to receive support through the program this year.
Dashboard data is to the end of October 2021, and the Department of Communities Tasmania has advised there has been improved performance in this area in the weeks following.
This is a reflection on the hard working staff and the support we are providing and we’ll continue to provide monthly data updates.
We know there is more to do and we will continue to work with our Child Safety Staff and other stakeholders to achieve better outcomes for children, young people and their families.
The Tasmanian Government remains committed to continuing to implement our Strong Families Safe Kids Child Safety reforms through our Next Steps Action Plan 2021-2023.
The Dashboard can be found at: https://www.communities.tas.gov.au/human_services_dashboard
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