Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I spoke about the youth addictions and on-the-land pilot program that was held just outside of Fort Simpson at Six Mile. I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services who actually participated in the first graduation there in Fort Simpson and a little bit more about his plans for developing the program further. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Member for that question. I did have an opportunity to attend the first graduation. I spent about 10 or 15 minutes talking to each of the kids about their experience and what they got out of the experience.
The department is currently evaluating the lessons learned from that pilot program, which is actually going to help us articulate and identify how we can move forward with similar youth-based online programs in the future. So we’re in the middle of that assessment now. When that information is compiled, I’d be happy to have further discussions with committee.
I too spoke with the provider of the course. Shakes the Dust Hope Consulting provided it, and members of the community, too, saw growth in those young students that participated.
As part of the assessment, will he be rolling this out in other regions as well? Thank you.
It might be a little early to say for sure. That would ultimately be our goal, but until we actually do the assessment and do the analysis, I’m not sure exactly how we intend to roll that out. But it is something that we’re interested in doing. We’re doing the analysis, and when that analysis is done I’d certainly be happy to sit down with committee and have some more discussions about how we could move forward with this in the Northwest Territories in different communities in different regions. Thank you.
Certainly, we want to build on that experience as well.
Will part of the assessment also be using the facilities that were created at Fort Simpson and continuing the program for the Deh Cho region? Thank you.
The department has actually donated the tents that were used for this youth on-the-land healing program to the Liidlii Kue First Nations to support the community in doing other programs that they’d like to deliver at this site. We’ve also helped them clear the site and set it up so that it could be used for future functions. Now, it is their site, it is their location, they do have the tents, so they can use that location, and I actually expect that they will use that location for many different healing opportunities.
We do have an agreement with them that if we wish to run a healing type program or partner with the healing type program in the area, that we can use those tents that we have donated to them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
