The State Government will award an extra allowance to child protection workers of between $108 and $149 per week, Child Protection Minister Sue Ellery announced today.
The State Government will award an extra allowance to child protection workers of between $108 and $149 per week, Child Protection Minister Sue Ellery announced today.
The full text of a ministerial announcement is pasted below
The State Government is recognising the need to attract and retain its child protection workers by awarding them with an extra allowance of between $108 and $149 per week.
Child Protection Minister Sue Ellery said the Attraction and Retention Allowance would be awarded to 689 child protection workers. They included fieldworkers, education officers, team leaders, and clinical psychologists.
"This benefit is intended first and foremost to attract and retain workers in some front line positions working with children, families and the whole community," Ms Ellery said.
"They are at the coalface of society's problems and they can face a stressful and thankless task at times.
"Keeping experienced staff is vital. We hope that the allowance will help retain the valuable contribution of experienced staff in these hard to fill positions, as well as attract more people qualified and able to take on this work.
Ms Ellery said while staff would directly benefit from this bonus in appreciation of their efforts, those who would benefit most were the children in the care of the Department for Child Protection.
"The stabilisation of the workforce and the resulting retention of knowledge and expertise, will lead to a better quality of service provision to vulnerable children," she said.
Ms Ellery said the Carpenter Government was delivering more child protection workers, who were more qualified and experienced, and who would now get more money for doing one of the toughest jobs.
"We want to build the expertise of our staff as well as ensuring children and families get greater continuity in the support they receive.
"These are the single largest increases in income for child protection workers in the history of Western Australia, coming on top of the largest funding increases in history to child protection."
Ms Ellery said while all staff at the Department for Child Protection were hardworking and valued, the immediate priority was to retain these skills and fill any department vacancies.
The allowance was a recommendation of the Ford Report, which the Government fully supports.