Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Whereas the Department of Health and Social Services and the regional health and social services authorities currently provide respite care services;
AND WHEREAS respite care services support the goal of keeping families together by relieving stress on primary caregivers;
AND WHEREAS the cost of these respite care services is much less than the cost of institutional care for disabled children and adults;
AND WHEREAS without respite care services some of these individuals with disabilities might become institutionalized and the responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Services;
AND WHEREAS without respite care services these families may have to rely on more costly programs, such as Income Support, foster care, health care and programs offered through child and family services;
AND WHEREAS the Minister of Health and Social Services stated in her report, “Foundation for Change,” that respite care services for families with special needs and disabled children would be expanded;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Weledeh, that this Legislative Assembly recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories commit permanent funding for respite care services across the Northwest Territories before the cancellation of any existing services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll be quick. We’ve heard an awful lot today about the value of respite services. These services offer the families an opportunity to care for their children, and rest, and get their children socialized into society.
I attended a Yellowknife Association for Community Living meeting shortly after it came down that the program in Yellowknife had been cancelled. I was pleased at that meeting that I had the opportunity to listen to a young man with autism stand up and speak about how valuable this program is to him. At that time, he stood up and said respite workers helped him to socialize. They helped teach him social skills. They helped teach him how to build relationships. They go on visits in the community with him. They get him out into the community and provide opportunities in the community.
Not having respite would mean this individual would not learn these important skills, Mr. Speaker. He indicated that he would have a lonely life without respite.
I’ve talked with other individuals who have children with intellectual challenges. One family told me that they can’t understand why some people are even thinking about removing this funding, especially when it’s working to include their children into society. Losing this program tells them that the people around them, that society is turning their backs on these families and their children. They are concerned that they might have to go on anti-depressants. They are concerned that their children will have to go into the hospital. They are concerned that they will have to use other aspects of the system, which will ultimately cost the entire system more money.
This is a cheaper way of providing support, important support to these families. I think it’s incredibly important that the department stand up, find the $250,000 for the Yellowknife program but also, as promised in Foundation for Change, find ways to provide greater levels of respite service to persons with intellectual challenge in the communities throughout the Northwest Territories. That’s what this motion talks to. Don’t cut what we already have and find ways to support those programs in the communities. Frankly, I’m concerned that if we are willing to cut such a fantastic proven program in Yellowknife, the next step is to cut respite services in the communities.
So let’s not make that mistake, let’s get it right, let’s find the funding, let’s make sure that we continue to provide respite to those citizens in the Northwest Territories who need it.
I will, of course, be supporting the motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. I will go to the seconder of the motion, the Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to take a few minutes to really speak to the benefits of respite services in the words of the people themselves. I want to start with expressions of benefits about the family members who have disabilities. What are they gaining from the respite services we currently provide and are talking about discontinuing? A break from their families. That seems odd, but if you think about it, you can understand that pretty quickly: the opportunity to develop social skills and aptitudes, relationship building, concepts, learning opportunities, partnerships, new opportunities for all kinds of things, leadership and organizational skills, community membership, the opportunity to become more active, to increase their resilience.
Respite workers replace extended family members when none are present. We know the North has many families that have moved from their communities and don’t have extended families present. Trust and undivided attention to family members with disabilities. Again, that’s certainly understandable when the Member is from a large family.
Let me talk briefly about some of the benefits enjoyed by the parents and siblings of a family member with a disability. The opportunity to reboot or recharge. It’s a vital break. It’s my only break. Physical and emotional break. It’s a chance to re-bond. It’s a chance to paint a room, to go grocery shopping or simply go for a walk. It’s a chance for family or adult conversation. It’s a chance to do homework in peace. It provides new hope. It’s a time to remember who we are and reconnect with self. It helps with challenges. It’s simply a godsend. Respite services make us better parents, provides the knowledge that family members with a disability are, indeed, safe during that time. It’s a chance to take a deep breath. It’s a chance of a normal life in our abnormal circumstances. It’s an opportunity for night classes, which would, of course, equal better employment opportunities and perhaps better care for their families.
Even respite services have benefits to share with us: ultimate joy, peaceful feeling of satisfaction. Their work is making a huge difference. They’re providing a needed service. They feel fortunate. They’re offering people an opportunity to be part of their community, and they have developed close relationships with families, including family members with disabilities.
These issues raised represent fundamental needs of families dealing with real situations. It’s a chance to shop for groceries, to go for a walk, to look after the real basics. Failure to deal with this need could result in an escalation of related health and social issues with much greater but avoidable costs.
As legislators and representatives of the people, we face a continuing challenge on how to allocate our resources, on how to balance the many demands and needs with the realities of what is available. In the case of respite services, we have heard from people in a very personal way that provides the clarity needed for decision-making. It is clear today that the balance we seek includes the decision to put priority on funding respite services. The Minister has expressed an understanding of the situation.
Mr. Speaker, I support this motion and will expect to see this government give an appropriate and specific response in the budget presented this coming February with a clear solution to providing uninterrupted and ongoing respite services where cuts are currently planned and ongoing or enhanced support throughout the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I support the motion that’s before us today for many of the reasons that have been articulated by my colleagues Mr. Bromley and Mr. Abernethy.
I, too, would just like to mention a few of the benefits of a strong respite care service in our community: integrated availability back into the community, social skills, relationship building, positive learning experiences, resiliency, helping families stay strong.
Mr. Speaker, a stated goal of this government is strong, vibrant communities. Mr. Speaker, respite care services are an integral part of us having strong, healthy communities.
Mr. Speaker, we didn’t get a chance to communicate with the Minister on the funding cut to the respite care program and, Mr. Speaker, that’s a real shame. It’s a shame that we had to find out via alternative means; like I mentioned earlier, my constituency meeting. That’s not how things should work, Mr. Speaker. Things should work much more cohesively than that. We should be able to have a dialogue with the Minister and with the government when it comes to proposed funding cuts. We shouldn’t have to learn at a constituency meeting, especially a service like the respite care program that is the target of a reduction.
Mr. Speaker, that’s just not on with me. It does give the impression that decision-makers do not care about the program. I find it unfathomable that the government could not come up with a plan to deliver respite care service in the Northwest Territories prior to deciding to spend the $250,000 somewhere else without even telling us. That’s a shame, Mr. Speaker.
Again, this motion points us back in the right direction and hopefully we can start a new, better era of communications with the Minister on how we move this forward. I certainly, Mr. Speaker, want to work with my colleagues on this side of the House and the Minister and the government on making positive change in people’s life, and I think respite care services and the respite care program certainly lead us in that direction.
I want to thank the mover of the motion and the seconder for bringing that forward today. And all the families and folks that were in the audience today, thank you very much for your support. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, will be supporting the motion with the understanding that we will expand this program throughout the Northwest Territories. It’s pretty hard to elaborate on a program that you can’t see the benefit of because you don’t have it. I think in a lot of our communities we don’t have the luxury of having this program in our communities. The program we have is an elderly person, the family takes care of them day in and day out. They get stressed out. They can’t take care of themselves and the elder. It comes to a point that the health provider will come in and say, okay, we’re taking that person out of your home, we’re taking them to Inuvik to the long-term care facility. That’s the respite care service we’ve been provided. That should not be the case.
We have individuals in our communities, young individuals who are disabled, who have special needs. Again, the services they get are being provided by the family members in those communities, and that should not be the way that these programs are being delivered. We have to have a universal health care system in the Northwest Territories that accommodates all needs and users of these different programs regardless of where you live.
I was frustrated to hear the Minister say, well, we have a program in the Inuvik region. But it’s in Inuvik. Mr. Speaker, I have 20, 35 individuals in my three communities I represent -- Aklavik, Fort McPherson, Tsiigehtchic -- who are disabled. What do we have there to offer those people? What’s there to offer to assist the families so that they can also take advantage of those programs and be able to take some time out and also get some relief?
Mr. Speaker, it’s critical that this government starts looking within the confines of the Northwest Territories that benefits all Northerners, that benefits 33 communities. Yes, it’s a challenge, but the challenge of the Northwest Territories and the resilient people of the North, we are used to challenges and we are used to being able to help each other out and support each other, and more importantly, those people who are vulnerable individuals in our society because they have special needs or are disabled or the elderly.
Mr. Speaker, it’s critical that this government puts the resources where they’re needed to implement this program throughout the Northwest Territories, and because of that requirement of the motion, I will be supporting the motion with that understanding that this program will be expanded to include other communities in the Northwest Territories; not just the larger centres, not the regional centres: communities. And when I say communities, I mean 33 communities. I hope this government hears me loud and clear and let’s expand this program to assist all people in need throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this motion. For me, the preamble, the whereas clauses of this motion say it all. The government keeps saying that we value families, that we want to support families, but I find this is a very strange way of showing it by cutting a program of such value.
Further, this action flies in the face of the recently tabled report on the review of the Child and Family Services Act. Throughout that report there’s a recurring theme of the need for provision of supports for families and communities. How can the Minister of Health and Social Services accept the Child and Family Services Act report, acknowledge the value of it, if the philosophy of these two actions are so totally different? On the one hand I feel she’s saying rip the supports out from underneath our families in the NWT. On the other hand she’s saying let’s provide the supports needed.
For me it can’t be said often enough that the effects of cancellation of this program will only add to our growing health care costs, care for the children and, potentially, care necessary for the parents when they reach the end of their rope. The Minister says she is working to find a solution to keep the program going. That’s very good to hear. But not all solutions that I’ve heard so far are okay. One suggestion has been for parents to use voluntary support agreements to get the respite care their child needs. Will that mean that the child will have a steady respite worker? Will there be a worker at all? How safe can the parent feel when, in the wisdom of Social Services and their assessment of the safety and security of the child in his or her own home, the child could be apprehended? There will always be that lurking thought in the mind of the parent. It is not an acceptable solution, Mr. Speaker. Yes, it provides access to dollars to get some respite for families, but it is stealing money from one pot to continue an essential service on the other hand.
I anticipate the plan that the Minister says she will bring to the committee in December. I certainly hope that it includes the recommendation of this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do thank the architects of this motion here. It is a very good motion. I will be supporting the motion.
Mr. Speaker, I want to speak in terms of the basic care of respite care in the Northwest Territories, mainly in terms of the second whereas in this motion is to support the goal of keeping families together, as the Member, my colleague, Ms. Bisaro has stated, we need to focus on this goal in terms of one of our supports for families and also support the communities to keep their children as close to home as possible.
Mr. Speaker, we also need to look at the high cost of this program in our smaller communities. I understand that there is a program in Deline that they are working on. Due to the high cost of travel, training and staff, it gets quite costly to have programs like this in our communities. However, we need to look beyond the cost of health care in some of our remote communities and look at a coordinated approach as the motion speaks to having permanent funding right across the whole Northwest Territories. That is the basis I look at this motion in my support for that.
Mr. Speaker, some of our health boards have to make some tough decisions in terms of services that we provide in our communities with the amount of limited dollars that we have, as Ms. Bisaro spoke about in terms of stealing from one pot to support another program. That isn’t the way we should be looking at health care to our people in our communities.
I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that this program is dearly needed in our communities as in other communities. I want to say that this program here certainly does help our families and our people in our communities, and that we need to look at this seriously and not have any programs cut to this program in terms of some haves and some have nots in terms of a health care system being developed.
Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to speak in favour of this motion. I think that my colleagues have very clearly and well expressed the benefits of respite care for families that are caring for family members that may have special needs.
Mr. Speaker, I have actually been in a situation where I had an opportunity, really a privilege of caring for a couple of adults in my home that were intellectually challenged. Mr. Speaker, it is a very rewarding task but it can be very isolating. It wasn’t long after I had these two individuals come into my home that I started to notice that my phone wasn’t ringing so much anymore. People weren’t inviting me over for dinner or inviting us over as a family. Sometimes people can become and can develop a sense of isolation. They feel that they are in this alone. That is a feeling that needs to be avoided at all costs.
Mr. Speaker, when I hear my colleagues speaking out what works here in Yellowknife and other colleagues speaking out what we need in the small communities, Mr. Speaker, I think we need to take a creative approach to this. I think we need to look at the family unit. I think we need to look at the individual that needs the care. We need to be creative in how we respond to that.
My colleague Mr. Yakeleya just referred to travel and training and staff. Maybe in some situations what is needed is for a caregiver to come into the home for a period of time so that the primary caregiver or family member can go out and do other things. Maybe it isn’t about taking the family member with the challenges out of the home and taking them away someplace else. Maybe it is about bringing someone into the home, but in a sense I don’t think that there is a one solution fits all scenarios approach that we can take to this.
When we do not have the same kind of critical base population, a formalized program may not be as easy to institute in a smaller community where we may be only talking about a few people. It may not be practical to take them away from their home communities. Maybe we need to be very sensitive to the individual circumstances and needs of families and individuals in crafting a program, but whatever we do, it will require money. It will require resources. I am a very strong believer that sometimes very little by the way of support from our government can go a very long ways towards keeping the families together and allowing people to do what in their heart they really want to do, which is care for their loved ones, but at the same time, not end up burning themselves out or feeling like they have to give up their life to do that.
Mr. Speaker, I will support this. Again, I encourage our government as we go forward to adopt best practices, do what works for the individual clients and be there to support any way we can. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In talking to parents about the change in programming with the deletion of the funding support for respite services, you can hear a parent tell me that respite has become a pillar in their family and their support mechanism. What has happened here is that pillar has held up many problems. It has provided them respite from stress. It has provided them respite from burnout. Mr. Speaker, the problem is that this pillar is now being chipped away and torn away. The family unit is feeling the pressure of that stress and they are approaching burnout.
Mr. Speaker, many families will tell you, as they have told me, that this is vital for the health of the family; not just health of their young adult that lives at home or the health of their child that lives at home, but it affects the full family. It affects the children that are being ignored because the priority of the family is always focused in on this one particular person. It affects the communication between two adults, the mom and the dad who try to find balance and a break and make sense of everything.
Could you imagine what this stress is like every day? Every single day. There are no holidays from having a child who has, for example, autism, or other developmental issues. There is no holiday. It is every day. You have to find ways to work through it and people have strength. I cannot imagine how they handle and manage it. I have seen individuals when it comes to families deal with these particular challenges in ways I have no way of comprehending, but respite services have provided them the much needed break to make sense of their world.
You will ask a lot of parents, and I have no doubt that people have, especially my colleagues on this side of the House, and the parents will tell you that many of them feel blessed to be given the chance to be the heroes of these children, to be blessed to be parents of these children who have problems. They are looking for this support and help.
Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about the little brothers or the sisters or the big brothers and sisters that get ignored in this process because the focus is typically on the one child, worrying about the day-to-day issues. Mr. Speaker, many people will tell you about the developmental and social skills that come forward through this program. You can hear stories and voices from parents and even the kids themselves of saying that they built a relationship. They learned to communicate better. They learned to have fun with the respite worker.
Mr. Speaker, this is not something we want to take away. Mr. Speaker, we have a program that is working and it is almost as if the government wants to sabotage that progress that government has made for these families by taking it away. Again, the struggle is turning back the clock. Where are we going next? People believe this was the next step and new hope for families, and yet taking respite away and providing no clear solution and no clear direction is not the way we should be communicating to our people.
Mr. Speaker, respite is a chance to have the normal moments in an un-normal day, where your normal day is full of stress and burden. It gives you that chance to take a deep breath and say what is important. I need to make sure that I am healthy so I can take care of the person that they love. Mr. Speaker, we often forget about the little things, but how many little things are forgotten in this equation? How easy is it to bring someone on an airplane? How easy is it to take someone to the movies? How easy is it to go to the playground? How easy it is to have, as Mrs. Groenewegen said, friends over? We forget about these little things these families are willing to sacrifice for the love of their children, for the love of their brothers and sisters who struggle every day.
Mr. Speaker, the government did the right thing through the THAF funding by supporting parents through the respite services. I believe strongly, and the voices of my constituents are correct, that the government is now doing the wrong thing by this approach. If we care as much as we say we do, we will show that deleting the line item of support for respite services is not the measured way to go.
Mr. Speaker, I will leave with this. If we can imagine our worst day when we are burnt out, whether it is due to arguments in the House or just silly things, and we go home and think about how life cannot get worse, all I can imagine is imagine what it is like to be a parent who struggles with these challenges day in and day out. Now double that stress. Triple that stress. That is probably considered a normal day. But yet they look forward to the ray of sunshine, the crack in the door of hope that has someone coming in and giving them a break so they can get the rest and take care of their own sanity at the same time, Mr. Speaker. It means they do not love their child any less by having help, but they have the courage of reaching out and accepting that help. That help is being taken away, Mr. Speaker. That is what bothers me very much. That, I can tell you, bothers a lot of constituents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of the motion for the provision of respite care services. I would like to thank the Yellowknife Association for Community Living for their wonderful pamphlet they provided and I was able to read through it.
I do concur there are so many success stories for the 29 families here in Yellowknife. However, like my colleague Mr. Krutko had indicated, in the regions and communities, our stories are much different. We do have the same needs and our families do have needs. In one of my communities there was a disabled child that could not stay in that small community because the services did not exist. That child is being well taken care of now down south. However, had we had territorial-wide respite care services, I believe maybe that story could have been different too, Mr. Speaker.
But I am pleased with the debate and the discussion here today and a semi-commitment by the Minister of Health and Social Services to review the needs and review the respite program in the upcoming budget session. I, too, await the discussion and debate that she is going to have with the Standing Committee on Social Programs as we move forward for the rest of this year.
I do like to see that a motion of this nature is a united voice of all Regular Members on this side on the importance of this issue. Once again, I would just like to say what is important for me is to expand this successful program that is here in Yellowknife to the communities and regions. In terms of how government pursues cost savings, Mr. Speaker, cost savings are for getting rid of programs and services that do not work, Mr. Speaker, not for the ones that are achieving success and our people really like and it is kind of like...
---Applause
Thank you, colleagues. I offer that to government. Those are the ones you want to cut, the ones that don’t work and not the ones that do work, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to, once again, standing in support of this motion. Thank you. Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. To the motion. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Members for their comments on the motion. I would also like to thank the respite care families and their children and clients who came to the gallery today. As this motion is a recommendation to the government, we will consider and respond to the motion accordingly.
Mr. Speaker, over the past two weeks there has been a great deal of concern regarding the Yellowknife Association for Community Living’s respite care program funding. Respite for families with disabled children is important for many who are currently in the program and will continue to be in future for families in Yellowknife and in communities across the Northwest Territories.
Over the past three years the department supported, through the government’s strategic investment initiative Building our Future funding, a piloted respite care program in a few communities outside of Yellowknife, communities with fewer support resources for families. We also have had a pilot program we had for the families in Yellowknife through YACL. YACL is funded until March 2011. The department will take this opportunity to work with YACL and Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority to develop an exit strategy from a Yellowknife-specific program. Furthermore, the department will develop a proposal and implementation plan for a territorial-wide respite service program. This will ensure families in Yellowknife continue to have respite support while we expand the program to other NWT communities and families.
Mr. Speaker, as everyone knows, we are under a huge fiscal pressure. Options we will look at would include using and maximizing the existing resources in the department. Mr. Speaker, the department’s work and oversight of a territorial respite program will be prepared for the next budget cycle. I will also seek support from all Members for inclusion in the future business plans. I look forward to coming to the Standing Committee on Social Programs to discuss the issue and this programming more in detail. Mr. Speaker, as we present and debate the next budget, we will have many difficult choices to make, choices over which programs to find alternative funding mechanisms for and which to stop will be ours collectively to make. We must also consider reasonable and fair program access for all communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. I will go to the mover of the motion for closing comments. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank all of my colleagues for their words. Clearly, respite services are important to the Members of this House. We need to continue to provide respite. I agree with the Minister; there are huge financial challenges, but we are talking about a couple of hours a week for these families. What is the cost of a program like this when you factor in what it is costing for somebody like Yellowknife Association for Community Living to deliver those two or three hours as opposed to having the families work with other institutions like our hospitals, where I guarantee you those same hours are going to cost this system significantly more.
I am a little concerned by the reference to an exit strategy. We have an organization that has proven time and time again how to run a respite program for persons with intellectual challenges, for children and families.
In my opening or my Member’s statement earlier today, I talked about the families a little bit. I talked about their desire for respite. They are not asking this government for help because they are incapable of caring for their children. They are capable. They are asking for some support to help them for short periods of time. This time will allow them to recharge so that they can care for themselves.
Mr. Speaker, in 2005, the current Minister asked the Minister-of-the-day to maintain the respite program delivered by the Yellowknife Association for Community Living and to expanding to communities outside of Yellowknife. That, Mr. Speaker, is what we are asking the Minister today to do. Keep YACL programs alive and expand respite to all the communities in the Northwest Territories. It is the right thing. The Minister already said she supports respite. Let’s do the right thing, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to request a recorded vote on this motion.
