Department of Family and Community Services (FACS formerly DOCS) workers walked off the job at the Kempsey Community Services Centre, 80 Elbow Street, at 12.30pm on March 15.
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The workers were voicing their extreme concerns about ChildStory — a new IT system which handles FACS work that is riddled with errors and is putting vulnerable kids at risk.
Kepmsey staff asked the Minister, Pru Goward, to halt the rollout of Phase Two of the ChildStory system. Phase Two would see police, teachers, and other mandatory reporters exposed to the faulty system.
Organiser of the collective action, Asren Pugh, from the Public Service Association said the ChildStory system is causing chaos for child protection in Kempsey and on the Mid North Coast.
“We are seeking a commitment from the Minister to hold off on the roll-out of Stage Two of ChildStory until the problems with Stage One have been fixed,” he said.
“Teachers, police, and others who are required to access and report into the FACS system should not be exposed to erroneous and potentially dangerous data.
"Our message to the Minister is: let's fix the mess we have before we go spreading it further.
"You have politicians and tech consultants sitting in the CBD of Sydney pushing out a system onto Kempsey that is literally putting vulnerable lives at risk in this community.
"This half-baked platform should never have been rolled out in its existing form. It is making it easy for kids to fall through the cracks.
"Walking off the job is never something these dedicated workers want to do, but they are so frustrated with the way the government keeps fobbing off their extremely serious concerns.”
Mr Pugh said when data was transferred from the old system to ChildStory some of the information didn’t transfer correctly.
As a result, situations have arisen where case workers are unable to access necessary information, which can potentially put them and their vulnerable clients in risky situations.
In one instance, information regarding a particular father’s history of weapon and gun possession, and the need for any case worker visiting the property to be accompanied by police was missing from the system.
Obviously, this oversight places the case worker and client at risk, which is just unacceptable.
