Debates of November 6, 2012 (day 30)
MEMBER’S STATEMENT ON TERRITORIAL RESPITE CARE PROGRAM
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Yellowknife Association for Community Living and the NWT Disabilities Council provide many programs for disabled persons and their families. One of the most widely used and most appreciated programs is the Respite Care Program.
Under the Respite Program here in Yellowknife, a caregiver from the Yellowknife Association for Community Living takes care of disabled children for three to five hours a week. The program not only gives the children’s families a short break each week, but it also introduces the children to a social life outside their families.
The Yellowknife program has been used by the NWT Disabilities Council as a template for three other respite care pilot programs in Deline, in Fort Smith and in Aklavik. Children have been able to develop relationships with their respite worker and, more importantly, perhaps with other children. Several parents have told me that advances in the social development of their child is absolutely because of the Respite Program. The kids have an opportunity to bond with and to relate to people who are not family members. The dynamic of such a relationship for an autistic child, for instance, cannot be underestimated.
In 2010 the Respite Program run by the Yellowknife Association for Community Living lost its funding. As a result of major pushback from the community, the funding was reinstated. At the same time, Regular MLAs passed a motion calling on the territorial government to provide permanent funding for respite care in the NWT.
In response, the GNWT created a Territorial Respite Care Committee to develop a strategic plan to extend the Respite Program across the NWT. This plan has been formulated and received feedback from committee members and service providers.
What is so desperately needed now is the implementation of that plan. In 29 of our communities, families with disabled children currently have no respite care services. The executive director of the NWT Disabilities Council states that they are receiving crisis calls on a weekly basis from NWT families, parents and front-line workers, including social workers, all of whom are at the end of their resources. As you can imagine, it is heartbreaking for all involved to have to turn families away, heartbreaking when families have to consider giving up their children because they just can’t get respite care in their home community, heartbreaking when suggestions for coping with stress involves sending children away to an institution for short-term care.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
There is an overwhelming need for respite care in our territory. When will the Health and Social Services department roll out the territorial respite implementation plan?
I will have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services at the appropriate time. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.