AN inquest into the suicide of a 12-year-old boy at Kowanyama yesterday heard overloaded child safety staff on Cape York are not coping with increasing demand.

There is now a backlog of 169 child cases overdue for attention, mostly relating to neglect but also children who have witnessed domestic violence, the Child Safety Department’s Far North zone director Brenda Campbell said.

"(The problem is) the lack of allocated resources, inexperienced staff who are unable to carry full caseloads and vacancies," she said.

"Staff feel there is an uncontrolled burden of work to carry.

"If we could manage the workloads, the turnover would be reduced."

Ms Campbell was giving evidence on the third day of the inquest before State Coroner Michael Barnes, in which the dysfunctionality of family life in Cape communities such as Kowanyama has come under the spotlight.

The inquest is into the death of a 12-year-old Aboriginal boy, who was found hanging from an electrical cord in his home at Kowanyama in January 2004.

Ms Campbell said her staff were dealing with an average of 22 cases each, which was almost double other parts of the state such as Roma, where staff only had 14 cases each.

"Also (on Cape York) they’re dealing with an extreme complexity of cases … there is a very high proportion of children with fetal alcohol syndrome," Ms Campbell said.

"I don’t think it (the large workload) allows the best quality of practice to occur."

She said the backlog only contained five and 10-day notifications with the more urgent 24-hour notifications being dealt with "on time".

At Kowanyama alone, there were now 35 children on child protection orders with eight still living in the community, three at boarding schools and the rest removed to Cairns.

She said across the Cape, case numbers had increased in the past year with 70 new child orders issued this year and no sign yet the Alcohol Management Plans in indigenous communities had made any difference.

The only drop in demand was at Kowanyama earlier this year when the community was forced to be "dry" because of wet season rains.

"Anecdotal, with sly-groggers unable to get in, we were hearing that parents were behaving more normally and children were not out on the streets and running around alone," Ms Campbell said.

The department had dealt with an increased number of allegations relating to "stolen generation" problems since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology on February 13, she said.

The inquest is expected to conclude today.

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