Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The department has reviewed the recommendation and does accept it. The recommendation is reflected in the Quality Improvement Plan under sections 3.5 and 4.8. I also talked, during my conversation around recommendation number 3, about some of the work that we are doing with the Foster Family Coalition as far as tracking and working with them. The department and authorities also participate in a monthly partnership meeting hosted by the Foster Family Coalition of the Northwest Territories. As a note, the executive director of the Foster Family Coalition of the Northwest...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. We do agree with this recommendation in principle. As part of the Quality Improvement Plan, the department has already committed to developing a set of key indicators. That is action 1.5 in the Quality Improvement Plan that has been shared. The set of performance indicators are currently under development. Once completed, the department will include these in future business plans as well as the annual report of the director of Child and Family Services where they align with the scope of the plan, so they will be made public through those mechanisms.

The department will be...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We agree with the Auditor General that all the foster homes must be appropriately screened, assessed, and reviewed, and also supporting documentation be placed in the files to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children in foster care. We do take a responsibility to ensure that we are placing children with properly approved, trained, and nurturing foster parents very seriously; however, compliance with the standards that would assess those various things as the Members have indicated was very low. The ongoing quality review process we've implemented will better monitor...

You should go to the mover first.

A communications plan will be developed in collaboration with the health authorities to inform the public and other stakeholders of the expanded services and how this change will gradually increase access to services during the first few years of implementation. I do want to point out and note that expansion of midwifery services is envisioned as a process that will be phased in over several years. This is year one of a multi-year rollout, and of course, it is going to be incredibly important that, as we roll out different phases and steps, we make sure that the public understands what these...

The department has received approval for a monitoring framework that outlines a plan to monitor the assurances at the following three levels, at the three levels we are doing our work; the Legislative Assembly on behalf of the public of the Northwest Territories, the department, and the authority.

At the Legislative Assembly level, monitoring involves indicators of interest to the public, such as increased access to safe, qualified midwifery care as close to home as possible, and reporting at this level will be made public through the Legislative Assembly and through the Minister's office...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is one of the recommendations that we agree on in principle, as opposed to accept. As outlined in the response to the Auditor General, the department does plan on actually developing the caseload standards for child protection workers; however, the deadline of June 30, 2019, would be premature to establish the standards. This is based on a number of things, but specifically, as we move forward and look at new resources that we roll over the next three years, the department is also going to test proposed caseload standards to ensure that they're appropriate.

I mean we...

The activities within the Continuing Care Services Action Plan are focused on ensuring culturally safe palliative care for clients and their families throughout the Northwest Territories, and staff are being supported to have cultural safety awareness training. This includes, obviously, updating and adapting practises and resources and tools to ensure that they are contextually as well as culturally appropriate. I know the Member knows, we recently released a Cultural Safety Action Plan which would also be applied in all the work that we do in this area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The department has reviewed the recommendation, and we accept it. Just as a note before I go into comments specifically about the recommendation, the GNWT does have a safe disclosure policy. I understand the Member's suggestion that there needs to be something other than that, but I do strongly encourage staff, if they feel that there is something going wrong or something not working the way that it should, they always have the opportunity to use the safe disclosure policy.

With respect to this recommendation, the department does agree with the recommendation and has...

The Continuing Care Services Action Plan has already been released. It's a public document, and objective number 4 is the area where we're focusing on some work in the palliative care. We're doing the homecare review, those types of things that are going to help inform how we move forward in this area. Also, Charting Our Course: Northwest Territories Cancer Strategy 2015-2025 has also already been released, and we've already hired a territorial palliative care specialist who is doing a significant amount of work to help streamline palliative services here throughout the Northwest Territories.