Glen Abernethy

In the absence of a Good Neighbour Agreement, we have already made a commitment to working with our partners in bringing them together on a regular basis to receive their input and feedback on how things are going. I do appreciate the Member's description of an organization or committee that might be struck. I am prepared to have that discussion, but I would hate to presuppose what a facilitated Good Neighbour Agreement is going to look like. I think we need to leave it in the hands of the individuals, those who are going to be the signatories, to come up with a plan that meets their needs as...

The department works to always find a place for a young person in need of our services. This could be through placements at foster homes as the Member has identified, group homes, specialized treatment which may be outside of the Northwest Territories. As I have already indicated, we try really hard to keep our children with extended family if that is possible. In some situations, we will approach friends and make sure that we can keep them in community, in families.

The Foster Family Coalition is a significant stakeholder, and they provide leadership in the recruitment of foster homes across the Northwest Territories through the year. The Foster Family Coalition and the department have developed a foster care recruitment video. You can go online and see it. It is "We Need You." This launched in March 2019, and as a result of this video, the Foster Family Coalition has indicated that they have already started seeing increase in the number of individuals coming forward, expressing an interest to be in foster families. That is good news. This video was...

The Department of Health has an amazing division called Indigenous Health and Community Wellness that actually helps facilitate Back to the Trail, which is exactly the type of thing the Member is talking about. We brought youth from every community in the Northwest Territories to talk about this very important issue and make recommendations on how to improve youth mental health and addictions issues here in the Northwest Territories. I am not going to commit to forming an advisory committee. I am sure people are tired of hearing this: we have three months of life left in this Assembly.

It is...

I had an opportunity to sit in the gallery and listen to the youth parliamentarians during their debate, and it was great to be there, it was great to hear everything they had to say. I have to say, one of the things that I found unfortunate is many of the things they were talking about, including the ability to have some supports online and using tools that are useful to them, they didn't seem to recognize that they existed, which means we have failed to do our job to help get that information out to them.

What I can tell you is we have a significant number of supports that are available...

This is an incredibly important area. I don't think there's a Member from a small community throughout the Northwest Territories, an MLA, who has not raised traditional foods as an issue. The designer of Stanton, the Health and Social Services Authority, has recognized the value in that, and we have taken steps to make sure that we can provide traditional foods in Stanton, and from there we can learn and develop opportunities to look at other locations.

Having said that, they're not serving traditional food today. The targeted rollout date of the availability of traditional foods, as I said...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our commitment to cultural safety and culturally respectful healing is a system-wide endeavour, and the Health and Social Services system is making changes to service delivery to ensure that this commitment is reflected across the entire Northwest Territories. Yes, a number of activities have taken place in the new Stanton. We are hoping to learn from these initiatives to make sure that, where we can roll them out in different communities, we will. Some of them are infrastructure-related and may not be able to be done in hospitals that are already constructed, but...

I wasn't suggesting it wouldn't be part of the agreement. I just suggested it's too early to presuppose what that agreement is going to look like, so I appreciate the Member suggesting that I said or suggested something else. With respect to a phone line, we're totally open to that. It actually does make some sense. We've tried to set up a situation to give those neighbours an opportunity to call somebody within the system already. If it needs to be clearer, if we need to set it up in a more structured way, we're happy to do that. I think it's important that we work with our neighbours. This...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A number of months ago, the mayor of Yellowknife actually approached me with information on these Good Neighbour Agreements. At that time, I did direct the department to do the research into the Good Neighbour Agreements and approach the neighbours to see if there was any interest in actually pursuing those agreements here in Yellowknife with the neighbours around the day shelter sobering centre. There appears to be some interest.

One of the neighbours has actually submitted a draft for consideration, recognizing that this is about getting an agreement from all the...

To ensure the safety and security of children and youth who are placed in foster homes, all applicants and adults over the age of 19 must complete a home study, child protection records check, and a criminal records check in order to be approved as a foster home. Foster caregivers and foster children are seen by child protection workers according to the department's contract standards and policies. I will note that this is one of the areas that we did have difficulty and was identified in the audit. Through our quality improvement plan, we have already started to see improvements in this area...