Glen Abernethy

Mr. Speaker, I was making reference to an extended care unit that currently exists within Stanton and that will have to be located outside of the building, but it does provide services to people living with disabilities who require extended levels of care.

As far as the funding model around the Stanton renovations, we’re looking at a P3 model and a request for qualifications has gone out to that effect.

If the Member is talking about a completely separate building designed for particular individuals to provide either short-term or long-term rehabilitation, that is a different building and we...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The department is considering adopting a series of tools called structured decision-making. These are standardized forms which child protection workers can complete in order to assess both the immediate safety risk and longer-term risk and future harm.

Several Canadian jurisdictions recently adopted these tools, and the director of territorial services is in touch with his counterparts to receive guidance on lessons learned in other jurisdictions. One of the first lessons that was learned is that it will take several years to adapt the tools to our particular...

Mr. Speaker, within the action plan, a number of the activities actually require departments to work together: Health and Social Services; Education, Culture and Employment; but not just the government departments but organizations that are providing services to residents, like the NWT Council for Persons with Disabilities and organizations like the Yellowknife Association for Community Living. Within the action plan, it identifies clearly who’s working on what initiatives, and I’d be happy to provide Members an update of where we are on that action plan today, a status report. Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We do want to move to a more sort of coordinated caseload count, but it’s difficult to arrive at a caseload standard when each case is unique and may require a different amount of time, different expertise and varying resources. There are also regional differences, such as distance between communities, that must be factored into resource decisions.

I’ve already indicated we will be working with the Child Welfare League of Canada to ensure that we are applying best practices in determining caseloads, but moving to one single integrated system, obviously moving to one...

Mr. Speaker, across this country, communities are responsible for the provision of ambulance service as well as mobility services. This is something that is consistent in Canada, it’s something that has been consistent in the Northwest Territories. All of the communities in the Northwest Territories that want to provide those services step up and meet those needs of the residents of the communities. It isn’t being downloaded because it isn’t in the mandate of the Department of Health and Social Services. As I’ve indicated, I’ve had conversations with MACA. There is money being flowed to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Getting feedback and input from the front-line providers is critical, as they’re the ones dealing with the residents of the Northwest Territories on a daily basis. There are two formal processes already in place. Suggestions for improvements to the child and family services system can be brought to the attention of regional directors of social programs, who meet on a regular basis to discuss program matters, and also suggestions for improvements to the child and family services system can be brought to the attention of the chief executive officers, who can place these...

The Northwest Territories isn’t unique to this particular challenge. Throughout Canada, many municipalities do fundraising and other initiatives to raise money to support things like handi-vans. This is a community issue. This is a community transportation issue. It happens to be citizens and residents who happen to have some challenges with existing infrastructure, like normal cabs and normal vans, but it is still a community issue and I would encourage all the communities that are affected by the downgrading of services, like the handi-van in Hay River, to work together to see if they can...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Within the system we have actually established the regular quarterly meetings of the directors of social programs to help provide a forum for this exchange. We have also made child and family services a standing agenda item at the Joint Senior Management Committee meetings of CEOs and departmental senior staff that happen every second month. We will explore ways to expand these efforts to include other stakeholders.

That’s actually incredibly difficult because they don’t have to self-identify that they’re travelling, but under the existing policy they don’t have to notify us anyway, and I don’t believe that would change. We don’t necessarily need to know the numbers. We just need to know that they are residents of the Territories for the allocated period of time. Our colleague Mr. Dolynny mentioned a report card that was recently conducted on snowbirds and travelling south. We have copies of that report and we’re using that information to help us do our research, as well, and we will incorporate the areas...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We agree with recommendation 18, and this work is currently in progress. The manual will be completed by October and further tools will be completed by December, so the manual is intended to be released in October.