The region's PSA and CPSU organiser Stephen Mears has sounded the warning on the system.

He said, at last count, the region was short staffed by about 22 per cent below its authorised strength of 123 caseworkers.

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Even that number understates the problem, he said.

"It doesn't take into account people on either secondment to other agencies, or caseworkers seconded to other roles," he said.

"It doesn't count people on worker's comp, sick leave, doing development for higher duties."

The region's caseworkers are so overworked they're sometimes working almost double the number of hours they're supposed to, he said.

That has created a death spiral, with overwork contributing to the state's worst staff retention rate, which has in turn created more work for remaining staff, he said.

"There's people working daily every night after work, there's people working across weekends just to keep up with their workload.

"And it's not that they're not any good at their job, which has been suggested by some areas of management. It's simply the fact that their workload is so high and they really do care about the children they're looking after."

They're so short of staff, caseworkers are simply unable to see every child at risk of serious harm in the region, he said.

"So many children are slipping through the cracks. People are very, very time poor. There's enormous pressure to keep up with KPIs - key performance indicators.

"If you're not doing x in this amount of time, then you suffer the consequences. Probably 90 per cent or more those time-serious matters are caused by overwork, lack of resources.

Government should exempt child safety from the annual 'efficiency dividend' budget cut, he said. And government should make a bipartisan commitment to increase staffing.

"Realistically speaking, to meet just the risk of serious harm incidents, we'd have to triple the staffing in the North West region in the latest figures from last year," he said.

"If we go to war they'll spend billions and billions and billions to kill people or to protect ourselves, but when it comes to our children there seems to be a lack of want to spend what's required."

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A spokesperson from the Department of Communities and Justice said child protection caseworkers are the backbone of the system.

"Earlier this month we rolled out ChildStory Mobile - an Australian-first app that provides caseworkers with real-time access to vital information, allowing faster responses and better outcomes for vulnerable kids," the spokesperson said.

"We continue to work hard to recruit and train caseworkers in the New England region through our partnership with the University of New England and a new digital marketing strategy."

Government has hired a number of new caseworkers to be employed in the New England North West region, which will drive down understaffing rates in next quarter's statistics.

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