Media Release
21 January 2005

Call Centre audio-recording calls

Child, Youth and Family’s National Call Centre is now audio-recording calls, General Manager Operations Lorraine Williams announced today. It’s a move that she says will improve call management at both the telephone operator and social worker level.

“Eighty per cent of notifications to Child, Youth and Family are taken by the Call Centre, and greater community awareness of child abuse and neglect means call numbers are increasing. In the year to date as at November 2004, we received close to 21,000 calls—up from just over 16,000 in the same period the previous year.

“It’s essential that we do everything we can to support our staff in handling this high level of frontline contact. Now that we have the appropriate technology in place, developed and tested for our Call Centre’s specific needs, we are ready to take this step.

“Audio-recording calls means we can better monitor the quality of our social workers’ decisions, assist in training and coaching our staff, and have an accurate and complete record of all calls handled by social workers at the Call Centre,” said Ms Williams.

The move to audio-record is the result of a review prompted by a call made by Ron Burrows in January 2003, which found that call monitoring would be enhanced if the Department implemented an audio-recording system.

Other steps taken by Child, Youth and Family since the review include manually recording and monitoring all calls handled by social workers which do not result in notifications, increased staff supervision at the Call Centre, and an enhanced induction programme for new Call Centre staff.

All calls forwarded to social workers will be recorded, as will a selection of calls to call centre telephone operators. Recordings will be archived for 15 years. All access to them requires specialised software, and will be fully logged and audited. This will ensure the recordings remain confidential.

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