Sarah Courtney,Minister for Children and Youth
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 that encouraging impacts continue to be seen from our $51 million Strong Families, Safe Kids reforms, with the number of children referred to child safety for investigation and the number of children in out of home care continuing to trend downwards.
The numbers of Children in Active Transition remains much lower than it was at the commencement of the Advice Referral Line in Dec 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 in each region, and Case Management, with additional Child Safety Officers, as well as additional support workers to assist response teams with cases.
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
