Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The questions I have today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services in regards to some campaigns. I want to know what is out there for people who are suffering from mental health and addiction disorders that might eventually find where the outcome is suicide.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what partnerships does the government have right now in terms of any kind of helplines that residents of the Northwest Territories can access. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department has three helplines for an individual. One is specifically kids help line and then two general helplines. Two of them are 1-800 numbers and one is a helpline for the city of Yellowknife. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, how about in the communities? I know, looking through the department’s website, I was looking for phone numbers, if somebody needs to contact somebody in the community or an isolated community. That’s where we need to get the services into these small communities that are isolated.
Does the Minister have any campaigns or any future work going into the small communities for implementing either an intervention team or a helpline? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services works with the various health and social services authorities across the North. Specifically, right now we are in touch with the Sahtu, Beaufort-Delta and the Yellowknife Health and Social Services in delivering some programs. One is the applied suicide intervention skill training, which we are running in the various programs in the various communities within those regions. We deliver those and we have some funding targeted to that right now. We are spending about $260,000 in that specific program to deliver those programs to help people identify where potential suicide could be a possibility. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, that kind of goes into one of my other questions in terms of funding. This $260,000 for this specific funding, how many communities are going to be able to access that funding for the training specifically for their needs? Can the Minister let me know how many communities this will be applied to or that will be able to utilize that funding? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, in addition to the applied suicide program workshop which has that budget, our plan is to go into three communities in the Beaufort-Delta, hold a couple of workshops here in the city, Norman Wells and Fort Good Hope. But in addition to that, we are going to be delivering the Mental Health First Aid Program, which also works in conjunction with this. We want to deliver that program with about $125,000 to deliver that program in Inuvik, McPherson, Norman Wells, Tulita, and then throughout the year we will also be delivering three more of those programs here in the city of Yellowknife. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Mental Health Act was first assented in this House in 1985 and there haven’t been any significant amendments to reflect the need that we have in our communities. I know, with the money that the Minister has mentioned, we can’t get into all the communities, so we have to find another way and that is through campaign and awareness.
Can the Minister give me any answers if there are any big suicide-specific campaigns that the department might be coming up with within the next year or in the near future? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, in January of this coming year, 2014, we are planning to have a train the trainer workshop targeted at suicide intervention and mental health first aid to try to train up some individuals that can go into all of the regions and work with people. Then the trainers will then train individuals in the community, trying to identify the potential suicides in the communities and also work on developing some forms of protocol when there are alarm bells going off on potential for individuals that may be contemplating, or ideology of suicide. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
