Family support that may be impossible where it's most needed?

I must have grumbled here before about the constant stream of complaint about the high rate of indigenous child family removal by child safety authorities - largely because I find it incredibly hard to believe that Australian social workers, being for decades now the career choice for the Lefty-ist of progressives on any university campus, aren't highly sensitive to the racial issues when they reluctantly remove a child.

Therefore, I was interested in this story on 730 this week, which showed an apparent success story in a modest sized indigenous run support service in Sydney that has helped kids stay in their troubled homes, while their parent/s got their act together (apparently):

 

It was obviously slanted to show this as a "way forward" - basically an argument for higher funding for such services. 

But, my skeptical take on it came up with these thoughts while watching it:

*  this looks like such a time intensive way of helping the families, the cost must be enormous.   I mean, were they actually qualified social workers making the visits to the house to do such mundane things as checking the parent is doing the washing, knows how to cook a decent meal, and has a timetable on the wall so as to remember when the kids have to go to school?   I think so, but it wasn't made 100% clear.  I mean, I have no doubt that some people with long standing addiction issues may need a lot of help working out how to do things the average non-drug addled person manages to work out for themselves, but the cost of such one-on-one support must be high.

*  The charity/support featured seemed to have several staff, but was obviously located in suburban Sydney.  (Indeed, the residence of the mother who was being assisted by them looked pretty comfortable and well appointed, especially if it was social housing - which I presume it probably was?)   OK, so finding the (apparently) aboriginal background people of suitable qualification to work with "at risk" families is one thing in Sydney - but how many child removals are from regional parts of the country, and how hard is it to get workers to live there and supply the same kind of support these women provided?   My guess - extremely hard indeed.   In other words, I would not be surprised if the high rate of indigenous child removal is to a large extent explained by the practical impossibility of getting enough people to work in this field in the regions with the highest rate of problems.   If that is true, what else can be done but take the children out of the home?

*  Finally - how to put this without sounding like a Bolt-lite? - the clear change in the approach to indigenous activism in the last 20 or 30 years to a more radical and grievance based approach is one with some dubious consequences for encouraging personal responsibility.   I don't doubt that bad treatment of some indigenous can have had generational effects - but I'm also pretty sure that well intended social workers who continually endorse the attitude that all problems are rooted in racist or unfair treatment of the past are not sending the best message to some of their clients.