Mr. Speaker, again, there are other research. We also have research from different jurisdictions as well. With some of the research, whether it be internationally or nationally, one we have specifically is on a UK study, Effective Provision of Pre-school Education, a large long-term study. A year more of early childhood education makes a big difference to children. These are just some of the areas that we continue to focus as part of Education, Culture and Employment. It is not only my department, I’m working very closely… We even partner with the Department of Health and Social Services because we want this to be an effective mechanism that we can deal with early learning as well. Ages zero to three, of course, would have to fall under Health and Social Services, so we are partners in that.
We are very serious about these challenges that we’re faced with and we are developing an action plan to deal with those matters. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. ECE is the lead on our early childhood development. I’m pleased to see the progressive approach of the Education Renewal Initiative in addressing new ways of learning in today’s world. However, with so many children entering the system with a reduced capacity to learn, it is clear that we must have success with early, zero to three, childhood development first.
Does the Minister agree with this analysis and will he commit to making a vigorous NWT-wide Early Childhood Development Program the number one priority of this initiative? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, the Early Childhood Development Framework will be capturing that. It is very serious to our department and with the Health and Social Services, so we will continue to push that forward in this House and in the Northwest Territories across the board. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services. When we’re talking about devolution, we’re talking about resources, we’re talking about expanding our Northwest Territories, having our own power, but I think the most important resource is, of course, our people and our children and them learning as well. We all know, and it has been shown, that student performance in small community schools has been nothing short of appalling.
Can the Minister provide assurance that this education renewal will address these very specific shortcomings and what will they be? Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Abernethy. Sorry, Mr. Menicoche. It sounded like a question for Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I will certainly take that question. The Members referred to how parental involvement can happen along with Educational Renewal and Innovation Initiative. Those are just some of the areas that it’s captured, part of the recommendations that will be coming forward and action plan. Through engagement with the Members and also the communities, regional groups, organizations, it is through their voice and input that they want us to improve the overall education system. So that’s what we are planning to do. In February during the session, I will table a document that highlights an action plan that clearly captures what the Member is referring to, and roll out the implementation. I am very much looking forward to it. We will be rolling out the program. Mahsi.
Straight from the record, as health and social services. The questions were directed to the Minister of Education. Just further to rolling out the plan, I will ask the Minister how he will be rolling out the plan in regions and communities. In my constituency we have six small communities and I’d like to ask the Minister, is part of the plan to go to each of those small communities and roll out this plan. I think it’s very important for them to hear from the students, hear from the parents and hear from the teachers that are on the front lines in the small communities. Thank you very much.
It’s very important that we involve the communities, the parents, the educators and the leaders of the communities. During the engagement process with the Aboriginal Student Achievement at the initial stage, that’s when we have the public forum in all regions, similar to what we have conducted with the education renewal process, engaging the parents and the educators. Once we start rolling out the program in six of the communities the Member is referring to, and other communities, as well, we must engage those parents. We must engage educators and the leadership, so we have to work through the DEAs and DECs. All those partners are involved and engaging the communities. That is the overall plan. I have to make sure that it’s happening, as Minister responsible for Education. We need to reach out to those individuals. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
I’m glad that the Minister agrees with me that it certainly is a must. I’d like to know when he rolls it out, I know they already have a plan and a strategy in place, but should there be some unique ideas out there, are the department and the Minister willing to amend their plan. I heard one parent in my constituency talking about what students are being taught is not what they’re expected to learn, which means that they are failing the Alberta achievement exams because what they are being taught is not the standard.
How will the communities, how will the parents, how will the teachers effect change as this rolls out, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
I would love to hear from the communities, ideas and suggestions on how we can improve our overall education system. We are currently at the framework stages and are engaging the stakeholders to develop an action plan. That will be tabled in this House in the February/March session. Even after that, it is a working document. We are always making change to our policies. We are always making change to our programming. I will be open to those ideas that can benefit the North. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. While I know it’s probably impossible for the Minister to be in each of our 33 communities, can he commit to at least participating in the roll-out at least once in each region or at least make as many appearances as possible? Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
With the overall engagement of the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, I’ve been to every region, participating in two or three-day sessions. Particularly this one is very important to me and also working with Health and Social Services. We will be going to those communities and engaging those participants and sharing their ideas and suggestions, so we will make every effort to be in attendance at those forums. We are committed as a department. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Colleagues, before we move on today, I’d like to welcome our Information and Privacy Commissioner Elaine Keenan Bengts to the House.
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Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on the Education Renewal Initiative. For some reason, as I’ve raised in this House many times before, it seems it’s our educators on the front line who are discouraged from expressing their opinion on a lot of things, and for what reason, I do not know because I would say they are in the best position to help us put together the best policies and practices to educate our children. I’d like to, for the record, ask the Minister if there was extensive consultation directly with educators for this Education Renewal Initiative. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I don’t like the word consultation; I like the word engaging. We have engaged with our stakeholders and they are part of the educators, the principals, the program coordinators. The Member is referring to front-line workers. I totally agree with her that we need to get ideas from those individuals. If we have missed out on those individuals and their input, I would like to hear from them either through my office, through my department, through DEAs, DECS, various partners that we have in the field. We’d love to hear from them. So, Mr. Speaker, if we have missed out on those certain individuals, by all means, I am open to those suggestions as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
As a government, we come up with new initiatives from time to time; maybe all the time, I’m not sure. The Minister has made mention of the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative and now this, with the Education Renewal Initiative. We have heard some pretty dire statistics on the preparedness of students and even ongoing statistics. I would like to suggest to you that those statistics are not prevalent in all communities, in all schools and in all regions. I would say those statistics do exist, but I would say there are schools where there is a lot of success.
I just opened the inside page of the Hub today, and the Parent Action Committee has taken out a full-page ad to illustrate the achievement of the high school students in Hay River. Mr. Bouchard and I had the opportunity to attend the end-of-session assembly at one of the other grade schools in Hay River. The kids that were going up there that we were giving out medals and awards to for achievement in their academics and sports and everything else, was just amazing. The results of these tests in Hay River, I must say – and I’m not trying to put anybody else down or trying to brag here – but the results of these achievement tests in Hay River have just been skyrocketing. It’s just amazing.
This initiative, is this going to make everybody do things differently or could it be targeted to those areas where most needed? Thank you.
The Member is correct; there are success stories in other regions as well. The South Slave’s literacy coach has been very successful to date. The Phoenix School is another one that’s been highlighted on numerous occasions, as well as Beaufort-Delta e-learning. There are all of these success stories. Of course, we are integrating into education renewal as well.
Of course, we’ve listened to the parents and educators and they’ve told us to focus on those individual communities that are struggling. That’s what we are doing right now, based on their input, their feedback. So, what the Member is referring to, this is our approach and we will continue to move that forward. Mahsi.
Thank you. I’m very happy to hear the Minister say this will not be a broad-sweep approach, because sometimes when the Department of Education comes out with new initiatives, they expect all teachers to take some new approach and best practices and basically have to revamp the way that they are educating the students in their classrooms and sometimes it’s more disruptive than helpful, to tell you the truth. At least from what I hear from them.
If we’re not going to take the broad-brush approach to the implementation of this Education Renewal Initiative, I would like to ask the Minister by what means are they going to establish the areas that need to be targeted to bring all regions and all schools up to a standard that’s acceptable. Thank you.
Mahsi. Focusing on the communities and also the regions, again, we have to work closely with the district education authorities and the councils. They have given us positive feedback on the success stories, as the Member is referring to, and focusing on the small communities. One of the pillars is focusing on small communities, staff development and student assistance. As we roll out the action plan, it will be captured, focusing in certain areas that require attention.
The Member is asking about the broad sweep and the particular focus. Those are discussions that we’ve had throughout our engagement. I’m looking forward to delivering this action plan in this House and rolling out the program in the communities. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Included in this rollout, will there be a defined reporting, monitoring, so that we can see what this new initiative is accomplishing? We need to measure the outcomes of these things that we roll out and that we initiate. So I’d like to ask the Minister, will that be clearly included in this initiative so that we can be reported back to on how it is affecting the statistics. Thank you.
Mahsi. Yes, the monitoring, evaluating and also the measurement of how the program will be running as far as the implementation and rolling out the program. So we will be keeping standing committee up to speed and engaging them as we roll out the program, short-term and long-term. So, yes, I agree with the Member that we will be monitoring this whole evaluation. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today will be for the Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation. In 1989 the Power Corporation moved its head office to Hay River. We’re awfully proud of that facility in Hay River.
My question is that the positions in the Hay River headquarters office have been floating slowly over to Yellowknife and other locations. I know there are currently 70 positions in Hay River, but I’m wondering if the Minister can answer how many positions are currently located in Yellowknife.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Roughly about 45, I believe. Thank you.
I am concerned with that large a number. I think the number is somewhere between 45 and 50 and I’m wondering why there are so many positions such as engineers, safety specialists that are currently in Yellowknife when Hay River is the headquarters for the NWT Power Corporation.
The majority of those positions are tied specifically to the operation of the Snare system and, of course, the Jackfish plant and Bluefish, as well, in the larger service area that we do have. Thank you.
Thank you. With decentralization as a priority for this government, will the Minister commit to reviewing these positions and making sure that none of those positions currently could be located in Hay River?
Thank you. I have a note here from the president and one of his comments is they are in fact struggling to fit everyone in on the second floor of the Hay River head office building where engineering is located. But, yes, we will commit to make sure that all the positions in Yellowknife are required and, of course, being from Fort Smith where we have almost no NTPC presence…
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I can feel the love.
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We will endeavour to make sure that all the positions are appropriately located. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve had a lot of discussion today on the Education Renewal document that was tabled in the House last week. However, I’m going to ask my questions and rank them in the way that we talk about anti-poverty and we talk about mental health and addictions. I’ve got questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services and that’s relating to foster parenting in the Northwest Territories.
I’d like to ask the Minister what is our current situation with foster parenting in the communities, in the small communities and the regional centres where we tend to sometimes have our highest incident rates of either mental health and addictions or some of our other poverty statistics. What is our current status of the foster parenting program in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s a fairly broad question. I could spend a significant amount of time talking about it. Foster families are an important resource and essential to the safety and well-being of children throughout the Northwest Territories who need that type of support. As the Member knows, and I think other Members know, our first priority is always to provide children with a foster home with extended family or friends where possible, but that doesn’t always work out and we do have to use unrelated foster families.
As of September 1, 2013, there were 203 youth or children in foster care in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you. I guess I could have been a little bit more specific. I guess what I was looking for is as a department do we have enough foster parent families for the amount of children that are being apprehended or that need foster care?
Does this government have enough foster parent families as we talk about this situation right now? Thank you.
Thank you. We always need more foster parents. We do work with the NWT Foster Family Coalition and provide them with some money so that they can continue to go out and advertise and encourage people to become foster parents. I think in 2013-14 we provided them with $172,000 to do that work to go out and recruit more. Short answer, we always could use some more loving, caring, dedicated, committed foster parents to support our youth. Thank you.
Thank you. I do agree with the Minister that we do have a lot of caring families out there and I appreciate the hard work that they do, as well as the staff that continue to go out and recruit. The last time I left Yellowknife I saw a booth that was set up in the Yellowknife Airport looking for foster parents.
Does the Minister have a number of apprehended youth in the NWT right now looking for foster parenting placements, and if there’s no placement for them, what are the services that are provided to children that are being apprehended? Where do these children go? Thank you.
Thank you. As of September 1, 2013, there were 593 children receiving services under the Child and Family Services Act. Three hundred and two of these were in their parental homes, 20 have a provisional foster, 46 are in extended family foster, 137 are with regular foster parents, nine are in northern treatment, 41 are in southern treatment, 50 are in group homes, 13 are receiving support and living in room and board, and six are in adoptive homes. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister provides some very interesting statistics, knowing there is a need for foster parenting. He mentioned group homes. I was wondering how many group homes do we currently have in the Northwest Territories.
I’ve been in this job for almost a week now and I’ve had a significant number of briefings, and that number is a number that I haven’t been briefed on yet. I think I know but I’d rather not throw out a number and be incorrect, so I will commit to getting the Member that information.
