IF A PUBLIC OR PRIVATE law action for unlawful or substandard service delivery is not raised against human service actors, this may not be the end of the story in terms of the law and human services shortcomings. Legal processes, rather than substantive law, can found tales of woe for human service actors. Bodies with investigatory legal authority may be activated by human services transgressions. Perhaps most importantly, mishaps and misdeeds may attract legally based disciplinary responses.

This chapter begins with a comment on legal processes, but deals largely with quasi-legal bodies in relation to flawed human services activity. It concludes with an overview of legally founded disciplinary actions and sanctions that may confront individual human service workers who have acted unlawfully or inadequately in some way.

LEGAL PROCESSES

This section discusses collateral exposure through legal action and court work for human service actors.

COLLATERAL EXPOSURE THROUGH LEGAL ACTIONS

As stated earlier, human service workers and their employing organisations whose service appears less than exemplary although not criminal, may be exposed through the criminal behaviour of others. This is particularly likely in areas of work such as corrections, child protection and mental health, where the criminal actions of clients cause public outrage and the work of the relevant statutory authorities is scrutinised and criticised, fairly or otherwise. For instance, when a two-year-old child was allegedly tortured and killed by his father in 2007 in Queensland soon after being returned to his parents by the Queensland Department of Child Safety, the criminal charges against the father were paralleled by press and ministerial comments about the age, lack of experience and inadequate skills of child safety officers (AAP 2007a).