The president of Newfoundland and Labrador's largest public sector union said government should avoid laying off social workers after new reports released by the Child and Youth Advocate.

NAPE president Carol Furlong said cutting the number of social workers would put even more strain on the workers the group represents.

"Surely, this has to be one of the areas where [government has] to maintain an adequate supply of social workers," Furlong said.

"We can't have children falling through the cracks — we can't have children experiencing situations that are unacceptable."

In the three reports released on Monday, Child and Youth Advocate Carol Chafe said lack of documentation and poor sharing of information contributed to situations where children were subjected to abuse and neglect for years.

According to Furlong, there is a lack of communication between management and social workers, not just between social workers.

"Management needs to ensure that they're talking to frontline workers first to find out what are the problems that they're experiencing," she said.

"What are the pitfalls, and what are some of the areas that they feel need to be addressed, as well, and why they can't get some of these issues addressed."

Furlong said this isn't the first situation the association has dealt with where the workers say they're simply overwhelmed.

"We've had reports that have come out that have said, over and over, the social workers need to have workloads that enable them to do the work that's expected of them, and not have excessive workloads to the point that they just can't get the job done," she said.

Furlong said that even with the establishment of the department of Child, Youth and Family Services, there has been a failure to communicate with frontline workers.