Inquest Hears Elizabeth Struhs’ Child Protection Case Was Deprioritized Amid Heavy Caseworker Workload

The child protection case involving Elizabeth Struhs was not designated as a priority or handled intensively, an inquest has been told, because the assigned caseworker was described as “very busy.”

The Queensland Coroner’s Court also heard that the caseworker may have been “overly influenced” by the appearance of the Struhs family’s “upper class” home, leading to cases perceived as involving more immediate risk being prioritized over Elizabeth’s.

Elizabeth, age eight, died on January 7, 2022, from diabetic ketoacidosis after her father, Jason Struhs, ceased administering insulin for her type 1 diabetes at the family home in Toowoomba, Queensland. Though previously skeptical of his wife’s beliefs, Jason converted and joined her religious sect in 2021—a group adhering to an extreme form of Christianity that rejects medical treatment.

Coroner Ainslie Kirkegaard is presiding over the inquest into Elizabeth’s death. The court has previously heard that child safety became involved after a 2019 incident in which the eight-year-old was hospitalized in a coma.

Child safety concluded its involvement with the family after only 17 weeks of an intervention intended to be intensive, determining that Elizabeth was “safe.”

However, the sole child safety officer assigned to Elizabeth’s case testified on Friday that her approach was not intensive and that she failed to conduct weekly check-ins during that period, contrary to departmental guidelines.

The department returned Elizabeth to Jason’s sole custody despite objections from specialist doctors who had treated her in Brisbane, placing the family under a voluntary intervention with parental agreement (IPA).

The inquest was told that only one child safety officer was assigned to the case and frequently conducted home visits alone.

The officer provided testimony on Friday.

“Ideally, I wanted to visit the family at least once a week, in line with our IPAT (intervention with parental agreement team) guidelines,” her statement to the court read.

“While managing the IPA for the Struhs family, I recall that I was not always available to conduct home visits,” she said. “This was a very busy period for the CSSC (child safety service centre), and I was regularly out of the office traveling to visit other families.”

“One of the home visits to the Struhs family was carried out by a student working with the team at the time,” she noted.

She stated that Elizabeth’s case was not treated as complex, despite the intervention warranting such classification.

At the time, she carried a “big caseload”—roughly 25 to 28 children across 15 families under the same intervention, she said. The coroner has previously heard that the Toowoomba region was among the busiest in the state for child safety matters.

Counsel assisting Simon Hamlyn-Harris said most of those cases involved significant domestic violence, drug use, or sexual abuse, and it was uncommon for her to work with “upper class families” such as the Struhs.

The caseworker agreed that she may have been “overly influenced” by the appearance of the Struhs family home.

“I believe we may have prioritized other cases at the time involving children presenting at more immediate risk,” she told the court.

She also told the court that she may have held a bias because her own child had nearly died of type 1 diabetes at age six. She said she had requested not to be assigned to the case.

Several witnesses previously told the coroner they expected the intervention to last months or even a year, but the caseworker said it was intended to last no longer than three months, given its intensive nature.

On Friday, Kirkegaard asked another child safety witness whether they felt “organisational pressure to finalize a matter like this quickly.”

“Absolutely,” the witness responded, adding that an IPA could be intrusive and potentially harmful to a child if prolonged.

“I don’t believe it impacted our decision-making,” she said.

On November 13, 2019, a senior child safety officer assessed Elizabeth as “safe” and brought the intervention to a close.

The caseworker told the coroner on Friday that she had not recognized the danger posed by Elizabeth’s mother’s church group, which was viewed as a source of support for the family.

Last year, all 14 adult members of the sect—known as the Saints—were convicted of Elizabeth’s manslaughter, including her parents, Kerrie and Jason, and the group’s leader, Brendan Stevens.

In her statement, she said Jason had agreed to continue treating his daughter despite his wife’s beliefs and that she had “faith” he would leave Kerrie if she stood in the way.

None of the witnesses can be identified for legal reasons.

The inquest continues.

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