Glen Abernethy

In developing the oral health strategy, we have actually contracted a local dentist here in the Northwest Territories to provide some oversight and direction on that. We also have some staff members involved. We are looking at changing the way that we provide oral health services. Some of the things we are hoping to accomplish is to create an integrated oral health program for children within the NWT at all ages, not just the ones in the school system.

We are looking at delivering more prevention/promotion activities with an emphasis on oral health as a part of the overall health, not as a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the past, our oral health services delivery model consisted of 12 dental therapists in nine communities across the Northwest Territories. There were three positions established in Behchoko, two in Inuvik, one in Deline, Fort Good Hope, Simpson, Tuktoyaktuk, Aklavik, Fort McPherson, and Fort Smith. These individuals got their training from a dental therapy training program at the University of Saskatoon. It once upon a time was delivered in Fort Smith, and it was a federally funded program. It was moved to Saskatoon. It was discontinued in 2011.

We no longer have a...

After the building opens.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are expecting that substantial completion of the facility will be either late November or early December, at which point the government will take possession of the building. It does require that the Department of Infrastructure go in there and do some testing on some of the functional components of the building to make sure that it is all running properly. Once that has been verified, then the Department of Health and Social Services would take over the responsibility of the building. We would then go in there and start doing our assessments on some of...

The department is continuously enhancing and looking for ways to enhance efforts to ensure that we have administrative databases that allow us to monitor program outcomes. We do have the electronic medical records as well as the new Child and Family Services information system that went live last week. With electronic medical records, we have not got it into every community yet, but we are rolling it out, and we are intending to have that done shortly. Those tools will help us collect data that will help this Assembly as well as the department make evidence-based decisions about what is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Member knows, we do have a relationship with Aurora College and they do provide important training, things like resident care aid training and nursing, but I think the Member is asking about some of the other things that we are exploring. I did have an opportunity to meet with the Dean of Effective Medicine at the University of Alberta to talk about potential opportunities for us to work together in bringing physicians up for residency placements, but also the possibility of having some dental hygienists come up for some practicum placements. We are...

We do invest about $3.8 million annually towards family violence prevention and inter-prevention services in the Northwest Territories; $2.9 million of that goes to the different territorial family violence shelters. Where there aren't family violence shelters in communities or regions, we do have some dollars allocated that we can use to bring those families or those individuals to the regional centres where the family violence shelters do exist. On top of that, we are also contributing about $477,000 to a number of different campaigns to bring awareness and combat family violence in the...

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will have talk to the department to get the specifics on that detail. I am not exactly sure when those will be ready. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that is actually part of the oral health strategy that we are working on, training our local people to do some of that work, especially some of our existing staff, whether it is community health reps or community health nurses. I indicated previously I did have an opportunity to meet with the dean of the medical program at the U of A, and we did have some conversation about whether or not there is an opportunity for some of their dental hygienist students to possibly come to the Northwest Territories, in particular to small, rural, remote communities to do...

Mr. Speaker, the directors' report will be made public. It is a summary of activities over a year, ongoing progress and processes where we are at any given time with Child and Family Services. The summary that I am going to provide committee is not something we are prepared to make public at this time. I hear the Member, and I would like to, obviously, bring some comfort and confidence to the work that is being done in recognition of the incredible hard work that many of our staff are doing to improve Child and Family Services in recognizing that we are taking a new direction with building...