Yes, please, Mr. Chair.
SergeantatArms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Minister, would you please introduce your witnesses to committee.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, on my left is Jeannie Mathison, the director of Finance, on my right, Debbie DeLancey, deputy minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Minister. Welcome to the witnesses. Committee, we left off on activity, community social programs, on pages 172 to 174. We will consider the entire activity at once. Please indicate which page you are referring to when you bring up a line item or have a question about something in particular so that the Minister and committee can find it easily. Do we have any comments or questions on community social programs, pages 172 to 174? Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to talk a bit about Child and Family Services. I had an opportunity to listen to some of the presentations, of course, delivered by the Minister and staff and wanted to get something on the record. I am trying to determine how the system by "system" I mean the department sees a correlation between child apprehension, foster care, and poverty. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there are a multitude of reasons that a family might find themselves in difficulty, where they either need to enter into a voluntary service agreement or, in worst case scenario, there are abuse issues and the child needs to be apprehended. In many cases, it may be as a result of struggles the parents are having around addiction issues or other issues. Often we find, but don't have a correlation, that often people are in situations of neglect or abuse. Many of them are faced with poverty. It is an issue that we obviously try to address here in the Government of the Northwest Territories with things like income support.
I think one of the important things to recognize with Building Stronger Families, what we are trying to do is provide support to families when they are having difficulties. We recently opened a pilot up in Behchoko where, if a family is in a public housing unit and they are having difficulty paying their rent, traditionally they probably would have been evicted, which means they would have probably been in a situation of child apprehension or family services would have had to engage. We are working with those families now, and in some cases helping them with their rent, to avoid having a situation where they have to move out and then we would be in a situation where a voluntary separation or apprehension might be necessary. We are trying to address the poverty issue to some degree, but certainly poverty is far broader than child and family services. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there is a substantial budget in place for Child and Family Services, as we can all see. I almost view Child and Family Services or child apprehension 100 per cent preventable. I am wondering if the Minister could commit to doing some work on more than just what appears on the surface and reasons for apprehending children and looking deeper into the reasons behind the child apprehensions or even the reasons behind how the department and the families end up with a plan of -- I can't remember the term that the Minister just used, but the plan, then to try to avoid all of that cost by trying to link it, developing some sort of a pattern? I am willing to bet, although I don't know, but I am willing to bet that child apprehensions are uncommon with families with high incomes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I feel that Building Stronger Families is moving in the exact direction the Member is referencing. We have done the analysis, and in the Northwest Territories there are more children and families accessing services as a result of neglect, which may be related to struggles families are having around things like poverty or other issues like addictions. We know that residential schools and colonization have had a huge impact on residents of the Northwest Territories and some of them are struggling in this area.
Through structured decision-making, we are looking at supporting families and trying to get to a place where we don't have to apprehend children. I obviously put a caution on there. Where there are cases of abuse, it may be necessary for Child Safety to remove a child from a family. In the Northwest Territories, we do know that mostly it is neglect as opposed to abuse.
I think we have an opportunity to take those steps that the Member is talking about, working with the families, supporting the families, providing them with the tools that they need so that they can do what I think they want to do, which is raise their children in healthy, happy homes where everybody has an opportunity to stay and live together. We are third year of five moving forward with Building Stronger Families. Do I think it is perfect today? No. Do I think we are moving in the right direction? Yes. Do we still have a lot of work to do? Of course. I believe, through the tools that we are putting in place and the attitude we are trying to change, I think we will get to where the Member is describing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Any further questions? Mr. Beaulieu.
No, thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is fine for this section. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Next we have Mr. Simpson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. These questions are in relation to family violence. Over the last 10 years the proportion of re-admission to shelters has increased by 25 per cent, mostly in the past five years. In addition, the number of children found to be revictimized has been trending upwards for the past two years. Despite this, there have been few, and now only negligible, increases in the support to family violence shelters, which are the first point of contact for many of these individuals. In addition to being a safe place, the shelters serve as transitional housing. Because of their access to those in need, they are uniquely positioned to provide a myriad of services that can help reverse this trend, this upward trend.
On page 172, there is a line item for $3.63 million. There is another line item labelled family violence on page 173, and there is an increase in the HSS Authority funding of $120,000 that I believe is earmarked for family violence shelters. The first question I have is: is the total of these amounts, about $4.145 million, the total amount allocated to family violence initiatives or is it just the $3.63 million found on page 172? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the amount on 172 of $3,630,000 is the money that is going towards all the initiatives focused around family violence in the Northwest Territories. The number on 173 of $395 is how much will flow to some of the different organizations across the Northwest Territories to support family violence. It is all in the $3,630,000. One is a grant. This section has gone up by $120,000, which is some additional contributions we are providing to three of the shelters based on some forced growth.
More importantly than the small increase, I made a commitment to the shelters last year that there has been a lot of talk about having a solid, set formula on how we fund shelters. It has been a little vague to date. I made a commitment that, once we had the single authority in place, that we would be able to work together to develop a formula in partnership with those family violence shelter organizations. I made a commitment that we would move on that basically a year after we had gone live with the shelter. I made a commitment that, starting in August, we will start to have those conversations with them on how to develop a formula to properly and adequately fund those shelters moving forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Simpson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That answers questions three, four, and six. Last June you also said that $2.5 million flows to the shelters. That was in response to an oral question that I posed. The department's business plan indicates that there are two initiatives related to family violence, supporting family violence shelters with funding, training, and capacity, and the What Will It Take social marketing campaign. If the $2.5 million goes to shelters, is the other $1.1 million spent exclusively on this marketing campaign? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there is a wide range of different marketing campaigns and other initiatives that we are using those additional dollars for. I will go to the deputy for the list and the detail. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Deputy Minister DeLancey.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. About $3 million is rolled to the family violence shelters through the authorities. Another $395,000 is rolled directly to the family violence shelters as per page 173. Then there are a number of smaller projects. About $325,000 is used to support, for example, we fund FOXY to do the social marketing campaign. We fund the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority for the Children who Witness Abuse program. We have funded the Deh Cho region for a pilot project on improving safety for victims of violence in a region where there is not a shelter. We give some funding to the Status of Women Council, some funding to the Tlicho Community Services Agency, and some funding to the YWCA. There are a number of smaller projects that are included in that overall budget, as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Deputy Minister DeLancey. Mr. Simpson.
Thank you for that answer. You said about $3 million to the family shelters through the authorities, plus another $395,000 directly. That is about $3.4 million, and in the response to my question it was $2.5 million. So has funding to family violence shelters increased by $900,000 in this budget? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm going to have to get some additional detail from the Member. Did we provide that number of $2.5 million? Because that's not what we have in front of us.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Simpson?
The number $2.5 million is in Tabled Document 130-18(2). It's a response to an oral question.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we will commit to getting a reconciliation of the numbers for the Member to explain where we are, but ultimately in this section we have increased by $120,000, which is the only significant change to this budget line from previous years; but we will look at the response to oral questions and reconcile the numbers. I apologize for any confusion.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Simpson.
Thank you for that answer. Yes, there is $26 million; it doesn't really tell you what it is. So it's always troubling to me when I look at this and we're supposed to be voting on a $26 million line item that says Health and Social Service Authority Funding for Community Social Programs and I really don't know what that means. So I was just trying to get some clarity. I guess I'll probably make this my final point. The family violence shelters are basically receiving money so that they can continue to operate, but there are issues with the facilities often. I'm not sure if this is a capital budget question or if this is something that you guys would do in O and M as a contribution, but if the family violence shelter just needs a new building, they have no money to store away and save up for that, how is that accounted for and how does the department deal with that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'll use Hay River as an example. I have had an opportunity to visit the Hay River Family Violence Shelter and talk to the staff and understand their concerns. The Department of Health and Social Services and the Housing Corporation are in discussions with them to explore all opportunities for them to find a new location. I can't tell you what that's going to look like across the Northwest Territories because it would be different pretty much in every location depending on what assets are available, what assets aren't available, but we do know that we need to work with them and we are working with them to explore options. Right now, we don’t have a solution for you, but we are working with them.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Any further questions, Mr. Simpson?
Thank you to the Minister. No further questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Next we have Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I noticed that the adult support services line which includes the Office of the Public Guardian is losing a small amount of money this year and it seemed like a good time to ask the Minister about the progress of his review of the Public Guardian's office which was due by the end of the calendar year; that was the deadline that he gave us. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there is no real increase or decrease here; we're pretty much status quo. I think it's $2,000 down. You will notice that it's down from the 2015-16 actuals when it was $1,354,000. Those are actuals and we did have a salary overspend in those years that had to be accounted for; but the budget has been pretty much consistent for a number of years.
The operational review that the Member is talking about was conducted by some external consultants and a final report was provided to the department in December 2016. The recommendations for improvement to business practices and administrative procedures have been accepted and we are acting upon those. There were a number of other recommendations that may have some financial or legislative implications, and they are being reviewed by the department and figuring out how we can move forward on those.
We're hoping to post an executive summary of the report online shortly, but we wanted to be able to do that with some of our analysis of those recommendations as well, and I'll certainly be sharing that with committee before we go online. Thank you. Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, it's interesting that I ask today because I don’t know how else I would have known that this report was done and that there was in fact a plan to share it with the committee. I want to go directly to the service component of this. When we spoke about this issue in June, the Public Guardian was looking at 72 referrals for service. What is the number today, please?
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don’t have that number at my fingertips, but I will commit to getting that to committee.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. These may also be questions that the Minister needs some additional time with. I'd like to know the number of assessors who are dealing with that backlog of referrals and also the number of staff who are dealing with what I'm going to guess is an increased caseload based on looking at those referrals, so could he please commit to giving us a rundown of how those referrals are being dealt with, by whom, and what the staff capacity is there? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I believe we talked about this a number of months ago. We have added a number of assessors, but I will get the exact number for the Member and I will also provide an outline of the caseload and where we are to date. As far as the report, we got the report. We've been doing our analysis and my intention was always to get it to committee as soon as we can do that analysis. We're hoping to have that done soon so that we can share with committee and post online. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
