Makara, the children do bond with their caseworker because they a generally the first person they disclose to so trust is built in early stages.
Anyone who is burned out cannot do the job properly because they are numb, which is not good for anyone.
Good rapport, and relationships with family is essential, so depending on the child's circumstances being in or out of care would affect visitation. Children in care are deemed safe so could be weekly moving to fortnightly or monthly. Some stable kids don't want visits. Kids not in care a minimum of weekly visits are necessary.
Every child has their needs exhaustively assessed, and appointments with specialist etc is arranged. Lots of time is spent with these kids because the whole issues are around deficits the child may have due to their experiences. Those kinds of parent problem/child consequences are important for court.
There are lots of issues in the department like you mentioned, as well as neverending bureaucratic nonsense. My own sense is that the department mirrors the clients, as they are very bad parents to their staff.
One of the good things about visiting clients, is that you had the discretion do work with them that resembled the therapeutic input they were receiving elsewhere, and they responded very well to the re-enforcement.
I discussed with my psychologist daughter today why Tiah wasn't just sent home, and she didn't understand either (she works there). The issue that both of us brought up, is that despite mum having younger kids, and although unification was planned, Tiah being the oldest may have lived a different life than her siblings, and was likely more traumatised. Perhaps it was happening slowly, but a child running away 10x in 10 months raises huge red flags for me.
Having to wait 6 days to find out who had the authority in the department to release names of missing children, is indefensible and unforgivable.