All of the departments do have occupational health and safety committees. They have regular meetings and they talk to the departments within the department heads and so on. If there is an issue where they think that individuals could be missing a lot of work, then they can’t really come out and ask individuals why they are missing work, so there is an offer that we have within the government that is an Employee and Family Assistance Program. Many people take advantage of that.
Last year, out of the public service, we had just slightly over 800 individuals access that program, so it could be part of their family as well. This year we’re anticipating that it will be closer to 900 individuals accessing the EFAP. This is available to people and we do have a campaign where we try to have the departments aware of the invisible disabilities, which mental health and illness could fall under. We do try to communicate to the employees on mental health in the workplace.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that we have health and safety committees, and I’m very glad to hear that employees are taking advantage of the services that are available for them. But I’m talking a bit more about something that is broader. I’m talking about a culture in the workplace. We have tried to promote a culture of safety. I think we also need to promote a culture within the workplace where it’s okay to talk about mental illness and mental health problems. The Minister mentioned a campaign.
I guess I would like to know from the Minister: What are we doing to try and promote a culture of awareness of health, acceptance of disabilities and differences, for lack of any better way of putting it?
The campaign has posters. We promote an inclusive workplace and we provide information to our employees. We have a GNWT Advisory Committee on Employability and the Employee and Family Assistance Program. We look at these. We try to promote as much as possible. We do encourage our managers to have discussions with individuals where we suspect that they are missing work due to mental illness and try to direct them in the right place so that they can receive some help. But there are a lot of privacy issues here as well. We have to be cognizant of privacy issues, so we work within that, recognizing that there are privacy issues. But this is what we do to try to assist employees.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Built in 1969, Moose Kerr School was named after Arnold J. Kerr, a long-standing principal who strove to incorporate the local culture into the daily learning environment.
The school underwent renovations in 1997 with the expansion of the senior high wing and the addition of a beautiful library that is reflective of the cultures. The library was later recognized as a public school library to service both students and community.
Moose Kerr School is the oldest school in the Northwest Territories as of today. Even though one is older, but it did go through major renovations in 2005-2006, so technically Moose Kerr School is the oldest. I’d like to ask the Minister of Public Works, what are the plans for Moose Kerr School in 2019?
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Beaulieu, Public Works.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government’s plan for any infrastructure is to replace infrastructure after 40 years, or 20 years after a major renovation, so the plan would be to replace the Moose Kerr School in 2019.
That’s just what I wanted to hear. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Often our people, for some reason, go astray and it takes great effort to bring people back on the trail. My question is for the Premier.
The Auditor General has indicated that correctional facilities don’t seem to have enough program dollars specifically allocated for rehabilitation of inmates. That sounds like a failure on the government’s part to live up to its statutory obligations.
Will this government be providing additional funding to ensure that inmates receive programming aimed at rehabilitation and reintegration?
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To enhance accountability, the development of a performance assurance and accountability framework commenced last year. This framework outlines consistent and effective management as well as proper monitoring of procedures and protocols and improved rehabilitative and reintegration programs. The framework will be fully implemented by 2016.
I’d like to thank the Premier for indicating just the progress in terms of the department that’s mandated to oversee the correctional facilities. Often, too, because of our government and our zest to try and help each other, we sometimes take an institutional approach as contrasted with going out on the land as a healing element.
I would like to ask about on-the-land programs. The 2013 Minister’s Forum on Addictions called for more on-the-land treatment options. What it heard is that on-the-land programs are very effective as long as the approach isn’t overly bureaucratic.
Why isn’t this type of programming being used in all of our correctional facilities?
Earlier on, the government made a statement about on-the-land programs with the Department of Justice. We did have a number of programs and they fell by the wayside because of a number of operational issues. The Department of Justice is going out for expressions of interest to have these programs come into effect. I did discuss it with the office of the Auditor General as part of the rehabilitation. As you know, having inmates go out on the land has to be a voluntary situation. We can’t force them to go on on-the-land programs. That is part of the issue as well.
I have heard the Department of Justice on the south side of the lake has had good results out of Hay River, South Slave and the Deh Cho regions by using a team-based approach to community reintegration.
Will the government be expanding this type of program across the territory so that all offenders have an appropriate degree of support when they return to their communities?
All inmates sentenced, remands and intermittents, should receive case management assessments. We agree and we will be working to ensure case plans to guide inmate rehabilitations are developed for all inmates including release dates. Plans will need to be documented, monitored and adjusted as necessary. This is what the Auditor General has recommended and we have agreed and we accept all of his recommendations.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Premier commit to this House that as the Department of Justice works towards 2016, in terms of unveiling the framework to at least address the concerns that were raised by the Auditor General’s report, that he will keep this side of the House informed and updated as to the progress?
On behalf of the government, we will commit to ensuring we do that as we do all of this important work to implement the recommendations of the Auditor General. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m just going to follow up with some questions on my Member’s statement earlier today about the Weaving Our Wisdom Gathering that’s actually going to be finishing up a little later on today. I registered online to get the live feed and it was great. It was really simple. The feed came up and I was able to just look at it for a bit.
I would like to ask the Minister if he has the number of individuals from across the Northwest Territories of how many people have logged on to that site, just to get an idea of how many people we’re actually reaching on this gathering. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have issued 287 name tags at the gathering itself over the three days, and we have had the video link available to residents, and I’m glad the Member did have a chance to go online. I just want to take a second to applaud our staff who have thought really outside of the box on this one and have come up with an opportunity to ensure that everybody has an opportunity to hear these discussions and hear these presentations from these incredible speakers.
Unfortunately, at this time I don’t have those numbers because, frankly, we’re still in the middle of the conference, or the gathering, and we will be collecting that data as best we can. I think this is a huge opportunity for us to look at how we can do conferences of this nature in the future, and we will absolutely be sharing that information with the Member and the House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Another thing that I did was I signed up for the archives. In a few days all these presentations will be put into an archive and be on the website, and that was a very simple task as well. So in a few days I’m going to get an e-mail saying that all the presentations, obviously because we’re sitting in meetings I was unable to attend, so I’ll be getting notified in a few days that presentations are up and running so I’ll be able to take a look into it.
Has the Minister done this type of video archiving with any other projects of this nature in terms of this videoconferencing?
This is the first time the Department of Health and Social Services has done this particular thing with respect to videoconferencing as well as the archiving. Once again, I have got to take this opportunity to applaud the staff for thinking outside the box and finding ways to make sure that all the information is available to all the residents of the Northwest Territories, and it is certainly something that we will explore and consider doing again. It’s something that, once we’ve had an opportunity to analyze this, other departments may also consider using this opportunity, this tool, in the future as well. Anything to get the information out there is a good thing, Mr. Speaker.
I know the Minister also travels and looks at best practices around the country. Would this be something that the Minister might be able to incorporate into looking at when he goes travelling to other countries, or even within Canada, and listens to presentations, that this is something that might be utilized based on the fact that they get buy-in from the organization to film a presentation and put it on our website? Is this something that he might look to explore to allow all Members who can’t go to those meetings to see what’s being talked about and addressed?
It’s certainly an interesting idea. I hadn’t thought of it previously, but it’s something worth consideration. I don’t personally travel to a lot of conferences. Most of my travels are here in the Northwest Territories, into communities. But I do have a number of staff who attend conferences around the country and sometimes internationally, and getting their presentations, and presentations they see could be quite valuable, assuming, as the Member said, we could get the legal rights to do so. But I’ll have the department look at that as well.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister alluded to 287 name tags earlier, and if you put a travel tag, accommodations, per diems to 287 people, that’s a lot of money. I’m really curious about the amount of money that comes in, not the amount of money but the numbers we’re going to get for people who have logged on to this live webcast.
I’d like to ask the Minister, if there’s going to be a report, if he’s going to share with committee and look at how we can utilize these kind of presentations even more, through a live webcast, because you’re actually able to use real time and ask questions on the website. It’s going to prove to save a lot of money for this government. It’s really amazing.
Can I ask the Minister, when can Members look forward to seeing a report on this? I know the conference is still going on, but can I ask the Minister when we might see that?
I would like to use this opportunity to applaud and thank the Government of Canada, Health Canada, who actually has participated and been a partner in the delivery of this and has provided most of the funds to run this conference. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the NWTAC who helped us to coordinate this gathering, to make sure that representatives from all communities in the Northwest Territories were there. We’ve had a great team on this project that have come above and beyond to put it together, and of course, a final report will be prepared and produced once the conclusion of the gathering. I would imagine it would take a couple of months for us to pull together all the information and put it in a format that’s readable and useable. But absolutely, that document will be tabled in this House. It will be shared with Members and it will be online for everybody to see. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister for Health and Social Services, in recognition of the Social Workers Month here. I would like to ask, recognizing the importance of the work that these workers do, what supports are in place? Frequently our workers, I know, deal with sad and sometimes traumatic situations, and that can take quite a toll on people and families, and people might even take it home and the consequences can disperse out. So, what supports do we have in place for this particular group of workers who have their own unique issues and require our support to sustain their work? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree, the social workers do incredible work and often they’re dealing with very difficult, traumatic situations. In the Department of Health and Social Services as well as in the eight health and social services authorities that we currently have in place, what happens often, and what is organized, is debriefing after very traumatic situations with other professionals. We also make counsellors, other social workers available should an individual be having some difficulty with a situation that they’re in. The Department of Human Resources also provides the Employee and Family Assistance Program which is another avenue for individuals. So, we debrief regularly, we have counselling available and we have EFAP available, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks for that response. What is the need? Are there a lot of requests from these workers for time off and that sort of thing? What is the sense that the department is meeting the needs of social workers? Is there any feedback or evaluation going on with respect to this? Mahsi.
Social workers are a protected title here in the Northwest Territories, a specific profession, and they have an association and we meet with them. The department meets with them as they meet with RNANTNU from time to time, as necessary. But I haven’t got those numbers the Member’s curious about. I will certainly ask the department to pull that information together to give us a bit of a sense.
I have talked to a number of social workers throughout the territory myself during my travels, and many of them have articulated some of these challenges that the Member is bringing up and have articulated that, you know, they’re thankful for things like EFAP debriefing and counselling being made available.
As far as the numbers, I’m just not aware of those at this time and I will commit to getting the number to the Member.
Thanks to the Minister there. Is there an attempt to move social workers around or to place them in cultural situations where they’re comfortable, that sort of thing? Do they receive the training for cross-cultural situations? Mahsi.
Thank you. The Department of Human Resources actually has cultural competency training that they provide and make available to all residents, or all employees of the GNWT. So in addition to that, the Department of Health and Social Services is currently working on cultural competencies that we can use within the health care system, recognizing that there are a lot of challenges in that area and that’s not just going to be available to social workers. That’s going to be available to doctors, nurses, all allied health professionals as well as social providers.
As far as moving individuals around, it’s a little bit more complicated in a multi-authority system. It will be something that we’ll be able to do with a little bit greater flexibility as we move forward with health transition into a single, combined, unified system focused on meeting the needs of all residents of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m just wondering if there are recognition programs that the government supports. Most communities know who their really successful social workers are, and a mechanism to support social workers would be great through some recognition or awards like that. Do we have that sort of support in place? Mahsi.
In the GNWT we have long service awards and those types of things, but as far as a recognition that the Member is talking about, and I may have missed the point, but it sounds something like the teachers Hall of Fame or something along those lines to recognize our nurses who have made a real contribution, or to recognize social workers who have made a significant contribution over time. We don’t have those. Nobody has brought it up to me until just now. I think it’s a brilliant idea and I think it’s worth the exploration. It may take a little time to get there, but it’s certainly something that I think is worth some exploration because our nurses, our doctors and our social workers are doing amazing things here in this territory and it’s important to continually recognize our great staff. So, thanks to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to continue my questions with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Last week we celebrated and gave attention to anti-bullying here and I want to continue my questions around the fact that the Minister, almost two years ago, said legislation alone was not enough to deal with bullying. He did indicate back then that the territorial Safe Schools Action Plan to address bullying and regulation policies and procedures were to be created by his department. So, I’d like to continue that line of questioning.
With schools facing budget and human resource challenges and trying to implement safe school guidelines, WSCC standards of safety and overarching government occupational health and safety expectations, can the Minister indicate how the department is helping school boards, DEAs and DECs meet all those demands? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
