NSW Community Services are taking action across the state today to protest our failed our Child Protection system.

Child Protection Caseworkers say they simply don’t have the staff or resources to support our most vulnerable children and the model that saw foster care services privatised is on the brink of collapse.

The PSA has called on the NSW Government to urgently intervene and fix the system.

In the past year, the vacancy rate for Caseworkers has increased by 250 per cent, and members report that daily vacancies rates are often higher than one in every two positions.

The Department of Communities and Justice is losing more Caseworkers than it is employing, with the average Caseworker quitting after just 18 months on the job.

Aboriginal staff are leaving at a higher rate, a crisis when their cultural knowledge is so vital to a community so heavily involved in the Child Protection system.

At 12:30pm on Wednesday 8 May, Child Protection Workers across NSW will walk off the job and protest outside their Community Services Centre  over chronic understaffing, crippling workloads, uncompetitive pay and the unacceptable risk a broken child protection system places on the state’s most vulnerable children.

The Public Service Association of NSW is demanding the NSW Government immediately:

• Recruit another 500 caseworkers
• Give child protection workers an immediate and substantial pay rise
• De-privatise Foster Care

We are asking if you can spare 30 minutes to come and support your comrades at The Gateway Centre 231-237 Mann Street at 12:30 pm Wednesday 8 May to show the Government that this is a serious issue and it needs to be fixed now.