Workforce Development: A pathway to reforming child protection systems in Australia

The Australian child protection system is struggling to successfully address voluminous child protection notifications, increasing numbers of children in state care, decreasing foster-carers and chronic workforce issues. In this paper, we argue that the capacity of statutory child protection agencies to achieve their social policy objectives is severely hampered by their failure to acknowledge or challenge the competing ideologies that underpin contemporary child protection practices. This failure means that the individuals who work in this area experience contradictory demands that compromise their capacity to work effectively and often render their work conditions intolerable, amidst the ongoing threat of media criticism that they are failing. Meanwhile, children and families in need experience risk assessment and interventions often reported to be debilitating and traumatising. This paper highlights many of the problems experienced by people working in and for child protection services in Australia and advocates for urgent reform. To build more sustainable and high-quality child protection services, we argue, workforce development must be central to institutional and organisational reform. In order to achieve necessary change, improve workforce retention and the quality of work, we posit that workforce development strategies must include the reconceptualisation of underpinning ideologies and current approaches practice.