THE DEPARTMENT tells a compassionate and intimate story of the lives of workers and families entwined within NSW’s child protection system.

“Child protection is everybody’s business”. It’s the slogan we hear with familiar regularity in community service announcements. Yet the only time the public hears about the system that protects our most vulnerable children is when one of them ends up dead.

THE DEPARTMENT is a feature documentary which takes us inside the never-before-seen child protection system at work in NSW. Filmed in an observational style, it follows caseworkers as they navigate the complexities of keeping children safe in families experiencing domestic violence, addiction, poverty, mental health issues and intergenerational trauma.

There are no higher stakes: the lives of children from remote communities to inner Sydney rest in the Department’s hands. And the decisions it makes will impact for generations to come. In modern life where being a perfect parent is a standard none of us reach, what does ‘good enough’ parenting look like?

DIRECTED & FILMED BY
SASCHA ETTINGER EPSTEIN
PRODUCED BY
MARY MACRAE
PRODUCED BY
IAN DARLING
PRODUCED BY
KATE HODGES, MAJHID HEATH, HAYLEY B. JOHNSON
EDITORS
MATHEW EVANS AND SALLY FRYER
COMPOSER
HELENA CZAJKA
SOUND BY
UNISON SOUND WES CHEW AND LUKE MYNOTT