Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today I was talking about the fact that in the Northwest Territories it is natural, it is common, and it is a good thing that family members, extended family members will intervene in a situation where a child may be at risk, a family may be in crisis. It is not always the government that has the opportunity to observe or respond to those kinds of needs. The problem is that when someone does this on their own initiative, it then absolves the government of having to take any responsibility for the situation. The reality is it costs money and takes resources to care for a child.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what recognition do the policies of the Department of Health and Social Services place on the intervention and care that are provided to extended family members by grandmothers, aunties, cousins, when a child is in need outside of their own home. What recognition does this department give to those care providers?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In our policy and practice we give a lot of recognition to family members, extended families. As much as possible we would like the extended families involved. In fact, there are many children in care who are being fostered by extended families and relatives. We do pay them, as we would any other parents or families who take care of the children on a short-term basis or long-term basis. Without knowing the specifics of what the Member is talking about, I can’t get into the details and we wouldn’t do that here anyway. In general, we do recognize family members to a significant degree.
For the benefit of the people who are listening to this, and I would like to understand a bit more what the process is, if a family member becomes involved in the care of a child and that is not through a formal apprehension of that child, how would the caregiver go about finding the support of this government to act in that role?
When a family who is going through distress or, for some reason, are not able to provide safety and protection to a child, the social workers will work to see where else they can find support within the community. They would look to the extended families like grandparents or aunts or any other family members that could give that support. Obviously, we have more stats for those children who have to be taken out of the family setting and we would first look to extended families to take care of those children. We would look for families within the community and when they are assigned with those families, we would provide financial support for the families who would take care of their extended families. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it’s interesting, because I have been approached over my years as MLA many times by grandparents, particularly, and in the case of a person I met with on the weekend, it was an auntie who felt that they had to take it upon themselves to intervene in a situation for the safety of a child that was related to them. How subjective is the need for intervention on the part of child protection workers? How subjective is that grounds for intervention? Thank you.
The standard is the best interests of the child. We know that a lot could be put into that, but whenever a child protection worker intervenes, they have to justify and answer for it and there are a group of people that are working on that. I think, in this case, what would be helpful is if I could have a private discussion with the Member. Perhaps this family is not aware of all the support that they can get, and I’d be happy to work with the Member to help this family if we can. But, really, I am aware and I could give the Member stats on the fact that our system really works to work with extended families in providing support to the children in need. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
