The Child Abuse Squad’s Operation RESET has won a WA Premier’s Award in the Improving Government category for the ongoing intervention program in the Mid West-Gascoyne District.

The Premier’s Awards for Excellence in Public Sector Management formally recognise and reward outstanding performance and achievements in services to the community.

Child Abuse Squad’s Detective Sergeant Brad Burnett said the award showed the importance the state government placed on tackling child abuse in regional areas.

“It shows there’s a commitment by government to progress this kind of initiative in regional WA,” he said. “It’ll certainly help our efforts to have the operation expanded to cover the entire state.

“We were up against some serious competition with a lot of very good initiatives throughout state government, so to be recognised in that company is really an honour.”

Underway for the past 18 months, Operation RESET has progressed investigations into 120 allegations of child sexual abuse resulting in 23 arrests.

The team of eight police officers and one Department of Child Protection (DCP) officer visit remote communities in the Mid West-Gascoyne District to interact with children and local agencies to help identify and coordinate responses to child abuse.

WA Police and DCP entered into a joint submission for the award and both agencies were recognised on the citation.

The operation is currently being independently evaluated by researchers from Melbourne’s Deakin University, who will measure its success from community and service-provider perspectives.