Happy New Year to everyone. We hope you're keeping well given the current circumstances.

You may recall we met late last year to try to find a way to address the health and safety issues while you’re busy supporting vulnerable kids, families and carers.

We’ve received a large volume of risk assessments and the results are concerning, to say the least.

What's more concerning are the ongoing reports that managers and other operational leaders continue to ignore an order of the Tasmanian Industrial Commission about case numbers for individual workers and the allocation of cases.

You are not to accept any more work than you can possibly do or have cases taken from you and reallocated to you without a discussion, and you have every right to know where those cases will be allocated to.

We have cases allocated to workers who are not Child Safety Officers, who work elsewhere in the department, or who are no longer employed by the department. There is a vague and mysterious list sometimes referred to as the “inactive” case list, but it’s a list of children and families with no allocated worker to support them.

It’s simply not good enough, and it adds to the pressure that is already high in your line of work. We also have real concerns about what happens when some of you are inevitably affected by the growing COVID numbers.

There’s no magic bullet, but we need to keep raising the issues and keep refusing to accept unmanageable caseloads.

If you have any questions or want more information, please contact HACSUassist on 1300 880 032 or at assist@hacsu.org.au