child protection specialist

home care worker

project officer

chief policy officer

executive support officer

Department of Communities

As a Residential Care Officer, I support up to 5 people with various disabilities, which includes challenging behaviours. A typical day at work is organising activities, personal care, preparing meals, caring for the clients finances, banking, shopping, and generally keeping to a duties roster. It also includes working with support and having good team skills.
I have learnt the policies and procedures of the department and how to search out information in client files. I have learned to support management in planning and keeping up to date files.
The hardest part of the job is time management although I do well with it, but at times, learning to prioritise is very important.
The clients are enjoyable to work with and supporting them to learn new skills and empowering them to live a more self sufficient life is rewardable.

A typical day started with checking mailboxes, processing and acquitting expenditure against client individual service plans. Updating data in the relevant data bases and advising management of the progress.
I learned different skills each day and more effective and time efficient ways of performing tasks.
Management were always there to support and advise staff. They were easy to approach if there was a problem.
My co-workers were one of the most enjoyable parts of the job and we all worked together as a successful team in a busy environment, always getting our work done within the tight time-frames.
My co-workers made it a more pleasurable environment to work.
The hardest part of the job was knowing there was only a certain amount of funding to help so many needy people in the community.

I had a variety of duties but the best part was working with students assisting them to create projects and to be able to see their enjoyment and development. 
It was often difficult fitting everything I had planned into a day, as there were always unexpected situations that required my immediate attention. It was also difficult at times when changes were made from the powers that be that had to be implemented without adequate resources and time provided.
Most of the time I was working with other like minded people who were dedicated and actually liked kids and wanted to see them achieve and reach their full potential.

Toxic work environment. If you don’t fit the mould they will kick you to the curb. No training provided, no performance improvement opportunities. HR is useless and zero job security. Every 1-2 years if you are on contract you have to reapply and hope you get an interview and hope you get chosen if you are already in the role. Very short term contracts offered, some only a few weeks. I was on contract for 5 years and never offered permanency.

The team I work with are highly experienced and very supportive to me in meeting all the daily challenges.

The complex technical financial and reporting requirements are very challenging to me as the newest member of this team.

Following the machinery of government changes enforced from July 2012 I was provided with this and 4 other options to consider as my previous position was no longer funded.

Extremely disappointed working under multiple levels of tired and resentful middle management holding onto permanent positions awaiting retirement. Corporate restructure saw respected, well educated and experienced staff lost to voluntary redundancies and positions safest within lower management held by those most willing to cut meagre budgets, force redundancies and merge teams. Following mothers death, received phone call from disengaged program manager to be told that two days are granted as paid bereavement leave but any more time taken will require an application to receive unpaid leave. Returned to dying bunch of petrol station flowers on desk. 

I worked for ECRU which was a department within Communities.  The culture was terrible and one of the worse places I have ever worked.  Everyone who started the same time as me, none of us are left. One example is the perks of working in government is flexitime.  Here, you were not allowed to accrue it and they kept using 'operational' which it isn't to make people work at certain times.  Lights went out at 5pm and you were questioned if still working, they made it clear it was not acceptable and you had to leave. 

Toxic work environment. No training provided, no performance improvement opportunities. So call communities, People are Selfish, not considerate, not compassionate not respect.  Higher level Managers keep gave their work to lower level staff to do their staff work, staff are sitting there, lazy and doing nothing. Higher level staff often take leaves and give the contract staff to do their work. HIgher level staff keep take leaves while other lower level staff cannot take leaves. Rubbish agency



A fantastic job. A fantastic team. Rostering clients on a daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis to ensure they had quality of life. Going out for lunches, swimming, visiting family, bowling and many other activities were on offer for each client. None of the clients could look after themselves for more than an hour or so, so it was rewarding to be able to organize an activity they enjoyed and let them go do it on their own, with the least amount of supervision required.

An excellent department provides important social services to people with disabilities and children at risk. Offers various roles, a service-oriented philosophy and interesting client base. Offers opportunities to negotiate favourable client outcomes, work collaboratively in trans-disciplinary teams and form partnerships with other services.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Child protection specialist 10 salaries reported	$94,560 per year
Home care worker 30 salaries reported	$103,666 per year
Project officer 14 salaries reported	$123,888 per year
Chief policy officer 9 salaries reported	$123,911 per year
Executive support officer 10 salaries reported	$103,477 per year

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