Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services, and they are in regard to foster parenting and foster families.
We have a lot of compassionate families out there who are willing to take kids in and give them a good upbringing, a good lifestyle. Sometimes in these cases, some of the youth and children that are taken in to foster may have some type of behavioural challenge or attitude challenge that does really affect the home and the support in the home, and the home structure and the family structure.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what specific programs are in place right now in the Northwest Territories that can assist these foster families, whether it’s counselling or some type of program to create that family structure and home structure that is right now kind of being affected by some of these children that might be taken into foster care.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department has a program called PRIDE. It’s the Parent Resources for Information Development and Education. That is a program that the foster parents are under in order to be trained as foster parents.
Just to clarify, I’m not asking for what programs to train these parents to become foster parents. I’m asking what programs are in place to help the foster families whose homes are being affected by the youth that they’re taking in, whether it’s because they’re being overburdened, a lot of stress, and it’s affecting their home life and their work. I want to know what programs are in place right now in the Northwest Territories for these families to get help and build that foundation in the home.
The Department of Health and Social Services provides funding to the NWT Foster Families Coalition. The Foster Families Coalition supports the foster children or foster parents across the Northwest Territories. They are sort of like a network organization that provides the foster care assistance to everyone that is a foster parent across the Northwest Territories. I think that is really the key way that we assist foster parents as the support is necessary for them to continue to be foster parents.
In terms of this program, do all communities in the Northwest Territories have access to this program and how often does this coalition go out to the communities that really need the support? I’ve been working with a family most recently who had to leave their community and head out of territory for a lot of work, and I’d like to ask the Minister if this coalition goes into the communities to do some outreach work or do foster parents have to go to the coalition to seek that help.
I don’t have any indication here that the Foster Parents Coalition travels; however, they do work with the various authorities at the regional levels to provide support, proper ways to retain foster children, and they provide some training. They also advocate for the foster parents. This is a group that does support foster parents right across the entire territory.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As many of us know, there is a shortage of foster parents and foster families in the Northwest Territories. When we have a challenge where a family needs help, and they’re travelling out of territory where services need to be provided, I find that very discouraging. We need to get more work and more programs to help these families out and look into it further.
I’d just like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services specifically what his strategy is to increase and recruit more foster families in the Northwest Territories.
The top recruiters for foster parents are other foster parents. Through this coalition and just the foster parents within the communities, some of the communities have groups that are head of the various foster parent organizations in the larger communities. They are helping the social workers and the child protection workers in the communities to recruit. Generally our recruiting is through foster parents and through child protection staff.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
