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.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
