Answering the call: $2million staffing boost for SA’s Child Abuse Report Line

Six additional staff will join the state’s Child Abuse Report Line (CARL), ensuring calls about children’s safety and wellbeing are answered faster, thanks to a $2 million investment by the Malinauskas Government.

Over the next two years, this funding boost, part of the 2025/26 State Budget, will improve capacity to respond to reports of child abuse and neglect, while also reducing call wait times marking a longstanding commitment and steadfast determination this government has made to help ensure the safety and wellbeing of children and young people in contact with the child protection and family support system.

This crucial investment by the government will see these additional six staff members play a vital role in strengthening the Department’s ability to respond while importantly, improving outcomes for children and young people. There were 53,639 calls to the Department of Child Protection’s Call Centre between July 2024 and April 2025, up 1.2 per cent on the same period the previous year.

The Call Centre receives calls to the CARL, which is staffed by workers with expertise in child protection and family support, and several other lines, including the Department’s Crisis Care and after-hours numbers.

Due to growth in the number of notifications, for 2024/2025, as of April, callers to CARL waited for an average of 14 minutes and 5 seconds. Reports to eCARL - the online portal for reporting concerns from mandatory notifiers such as nurses, doctors and teachers - have risen by 8.3% to 47,750. This follows a 7.5% increase the previous year. Overall, notifications have increased by 3.8%, to 83,428.

To report suspicion that a child or young person is, or may be, at risk of harm, call the Child Abuse Report Line on 13 14 78.

The report line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Quotes

Attributable to Katrine Hildyard:

This additional funding for six new staff at the Contact Centre reflects our government’s commitment to supporting children and young people who most need support, to reforming our child protection and family support system and to supporting the remarkable staff who undertake this important and difficult work.

We know that more families are experiencing complex, interconnected and intergenerational issues including drug and alcohol misuse, domestic, family and sexual violence, poverty and mental ill-health, and with this, we are continuing to see an increase in concerns about the safety of children being raised.

I am really grateful to community members who make reports. It is vital that we make the process as efficient as possible, including for mandatory notifiers working as teachers, doctors, emergency services personnel and in other roles, who report concerns to help protect the safety and wellbeing of children and young people.

And I am really grateful to the compassionate and dedicated staff at the frontline. These additional staff who will join them will mean more calls can be answered more quickly.