2. Better supporting child protection practitioners

Our 2018 audit found that DFFH could improve its mental health support to CPPs. 

We recommended DFFH holistically monitor CPPs' mental health, deliver specialised and accessible support to CPPs, and check if its support and services work.

This chapter looks at DFFH's progress in addressing these recommendations.

2.1 Monitoring CPPs' mental health

CPPs are regularly exposed to stressors and experiences that can affect their mental health and wellbeing. These include:

1. Making child protection practitioners' workloads manageable

Our 2018 audit found that unmanageable workloads were damaging to CPPs' mental health. 

We said that DFFH should:

  • explain the risks of excessive workload on CPP mental health to the government and ask for enough funding
  • improve its workforce modelling to better understand what resources it will need in the future.

This chapter looks at DFFH's progress in addressing these 2 recommendations.