House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-09-23 Daily Xml

Contents

Child Protection

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (14:48): Supplementary: what is the definition of a tier 2 report?

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Education and Child Development) (14:48): I have had a look at a range of documents, and they all seem to have a slightly different definition for tier 2. Tier 2 means that it is a serious notification and one that the department needs to think about what needs to happen. The simple fact of the matter is that we have more than doubled the care workforce. I think we have trebled the budget. We have had a massive increase in the number of calls to the Child Abuse Report Line. We have different ways of people notifying. What we need to do is what we are doing and focus our work on working with families in their home, rather than making these decisions to take children away, when it is at all possible.