Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I talked about what kind of support we have for our victim service coordinators in the Northwest Territories. As I said earlier, I stated that 1,942 cases go to victim service coordinators throughout the NWT, and those are the only ones that need services. There might even be more victims out there that don’t speak up, don’t stand up.
I would like to ask the Minister of Justice, how many victim service coordinators do we currently have in the Northwest Territories address all these cases? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Justice, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have some full-time workers in the area of victim service. We also have a number of part-time persons who deliver this much needed responsibility to our residents. I’d have to get the Member the exact figure, and I can get him the figure by community on who’s where and what positions are full time and what are part time. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, from the family violence report card that I most recently went through, I think there’s about seven victim service coordinators. I could be wrong, though. But I know the community of Inuvik, we do have an issue in terms of keeping that position staffed because it’s only a half-time position and the responsibilities, the work and the effort that these victim service coordinators go through to get victims to the courts to jail or even the hospital or counselling, it goes above and beyond their scope of work and practice, and sometimes beyond the work hours that they’re actually given.
I’d like to ask the Minister, is he willing to look at revising some of these half-time positions, especially in the regional centres where caseloads are very high, to turn it from a half-time position into a full-time position? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, like coroners – I know we talked about coroners earlier in this session – victim services workers do have a very tough job. They’re dealing with some very stressful situations, and it’s important, from the Department of Justice perspective, that we provide them with the support that they need.
On a case-by-case basis if there’s a workload there that would warrant a full-time position, that certainly is something that the department would entertain and we’d take a look at that. Thank you.
In terms of providing services to our victim service coordinators, what type of training is available for them to deal with some of these very highly stressful situations that they find themselves? Not only training for them, but what about counselling services for victim service coordinators that, on a daily basis in some cases, see the harshness of our residents of the Northwest Territories who are going through some type of family violence, or after a specific tragedy, what kind of counselling services and training is provided to these victim service coordinators? Thank you.
There’s ongoing training and support for our victim services workers across the NWT. I understand they will be in Yellowknife next week. I believe I’ll be speaking to the group next week here in Yellowknife. If the Member is available – I know MLA Moses came to the coroners’ event last week – and certainly if he has some time and he’s in town, I’d encourage him to attend that, as well, to learn more about victim services and the support that we provide through the Department of Justice.
I think having the group get together to share experiences and touch base with each other about issues and problems, it always is good to talk about your work with your peers. So it’s a great opportunity and I’ll be there to lend my support to the work that they do on behalf of residents here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will take that invitation and hopefully I can make it. It depends on our committee schedule for next week. However, sometimes to get the best results and hear what’s really happening is to talk to people on the ground level.
Is the Minister willing to sit down with the victim service coordinators next week and just have a general talk on what their needs are to help them do their job better for residents of the Northwest Territories? Is he willing to make the time next week to sit down and listen to what they really need? They’re the ones who are dealing with the victims and seeing what’s happening on the front line. Thank you.
Thank you. I hadn’t been requested to do that, but by all regards, I’d be happy to do that if they wanted to have a bit of a roundtable with me. What I normally do, if I speak to the group, I stay and answer questions if people have questions.
Yes, we can look at having something like that happen when they’re here in town next week, an opportunity for them to ask me questions and a bit of a dialogue with them. That sounds like a very good idea. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
