Tom Beaulieu

Thank you. We recognize that part of the issue in some of the authorities is the result of just not having the right budgeting for some. For some it’s the costs of doing business the way that each of the authorities do their business, bringing locums in from across the country. So as we move towards dealing with a governance issue at the health and social services authority and trying to change the way we manage our physician resources across the territory, trying to bring the physician resources to the Northwest Territories, we’re hoping to address these issues.

So I’ll just read some of the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We don’t have a lot of the detail here on the gaps in order to fill all the requirements that are needed and the work that’s needed by the department in order to meet the needs of the development of a specialized court. What we have and what we will work on – and, of course, that motion was passed today – is that we have some work being done with the development of a youth and detox program models as one of the pieces. We are looking at hiring some mental health specialists in the professional development and also in the quality assurance. Also, looking at some other...

Mr. Chair, the plan was to continue to work with the CEO, then the CEO continues to work with the health centres that may be impacted. Based on the actual impact on the health centres in as far as the number of health concerns or health issues that are brought to the health centres, or a number of social services type of issues that come to the forefront in her dealing with social workers within the communities and within her region, we will have that discussion with her again to ensure that, although we are having discussions with her, I think we were waiting for her to come with a case to...

The information I have is that it does address the recommendations and that we are working with the Coalition on Family Violence to address the recommendations in the original plan.

Mr. Chairman, the timeline for us responding to the forum’s report is we’re going to try to do a roll-up of their recommendations in April, and then during the May-June sitting of this Legislative Assembly, we are hoping to be able to present, and that’s again targeted to do it at that time to present the recommendations and how we see those recommendations fitting into our Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan and moving forward to address those issues that are identified by that forum.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right is Debbie DeLancey, deputy minister of Health and Social Services. To my left is director of finance, Jeannie Mathison, Health and Social Services.

We are on track to submitting a legislative proposal to amend the act in this fiscal year as a result of that 2011 review. One of the key amendments in the act is to remove some of the barriers that the communities had encountered in the development of child and family services committees.

The department has provided training to the workers but we’re looking for the specifics of that training, or we can also provide, I suppose we can provide that. We can continue to look for it and then provide the information further on down or provide it in writing, one way or the other. But the department has done some training with the social workers.

I’ll have the deputy provide the detailed response.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re using pilot projects as exactly what they are, pilots. They will end, those projects. The information gathered from those programs, those specific programs would probably continue, but not as pilots. They would continue as the regular course of business that we do in the chronic disease management.

As a result of those projects, we’re going to be able to expand into other programs we’re seeing that we need to address the chronic disease issues. We know that initially when we forge into this work, we do the same thing too. We look at the stats. That’s what we use...