(Photo: Bill Dowdy, Bob Kearins, Kelly Dowdy and Robin Kearins during the night of the presentation).
Kelly Dowdy covered a number of important aspects of child abuse/neglect on Tuesday night at the Mudgee Rotary meeting. Kelly is a child protection case worker of the Department of Community Service (formerly known as DOCS) and is very passionate about child protection. She emphasised that child protection is everyone’s business.
The Department of Community Service has changed approaches to child protection, instead of taking action in an investigative manner, the department steps in helping and understanding situations of customers, these are key to resolve many cases.
Child protection is a huge challenge due to “trifecta-problems”: drugs, mental health and domestic violence.
In the Mid western region, there are 401 children reported to the department in the 12 months period to March this year and 52 are ROSH cases (Risk Of Significant Harm).