Ms Canfor, who led a child protection team in Melbourne’s east, alleges in her Federal Court statement of claim there was a risk vulnerable children would come to harm because she and her staff were so exhausted, stressed and overworked. Her court challenge tightens focus on the culture within the state’s troubled child protection system, where workers face violence, harassment and even death threats in their daily work. A report released on Thursday by the state’s Auditor General found child protection workers struggled to maintain good mental health in the face of unreasonable workloads and inadequate departmental support. Ms Canfor, who had worked in child protection for more than a decade, first raised the alarm with her manager in August 2016. Mr Bornstein, a principal lawyer at Maurice Blackburn, said his client’s complaints were triggered by an “urgent, horrible” case of alleged child sexual abuse that came to light late on a Friday afternoon in 2016.

“Eileen said she couldn’t ask her staff to start on that because they’d be required to work excessive hours. Management essentially directed her to require her staff to do that...including ferrying a distressed child around at 2am,” he said. “It’s clear that highly stressed, overloaded staff are trying to repel work away from them and towards other staff.” After her 19-hour shift Ms Canfor complained and told her manager the department needed a “fatigue policy” but her concerns were not acted upon, her claim states. Over the next year Ms Canfor lodged 13 complaints with her managers, all relating to the excessive, “unsustainable” workload faced by her and members of her team. Her statement alleges she and her staff were unable to follow up existing child protection matters before new ones came in. Their stress endangered vulnerable children and families, it alleges.

Ms Canfor was also concerned about comments made to her by a manager to the effect that “this is a young person’s gig” and “you’re looking tired”. After Ms Canfor made her 13th complaint, her managers said they had concerns about her decision-making and told her she would be investigated for misconduct by the department’s ethical standards unit. Mr Bornstein says this is a clear example of a whistleblower being penalised, and Ms Canfor had never been the subject of adverse performance or conduct concerns before. “It’s very common in whistleblower cases for the person who stands up and says there is a problem here, and it’s a systemic problem, for management to avoid addressing it and start to mistreat the person who makes a fuss,” he said. “Eileen has had an extraordinarily distinguished career in child protection and has been the subject of many accolades and two staff awards,” he said.

“My very public invitation is for [Minister for Families] Jenny Mikakos and [Minister for Mental Health] Martin Foley to come and look at this hearing - it will give them a very concrete illustration of a system that is unsustainable.” Between 2010 and 2016, the number of child protection workers rose about 26 per cent, but this has not kept pace with the 120 per cent increase in child protection reports, the auditor’s report found. The number of workers would have to double, at least, to bring workloads down to a manageable level the department acknowledges in the auditor’s report. There has also been a 42 per cent increase in the average allocated caseloads for child protection workers. Ms Canfor has been certified as medically unfit for work and has not returned to the department, but her internal investigation is still live.