Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the government allocate an additional $1.2 million to extend the child and family resource programs and services to at least six small communities in the 2014-15 fiscal year; and further, that the Department of Health and Social Services collaborate with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to utilize school facilities for the child and family resource programs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Just give us a second and we’ll circulate that motion.
Committee, the motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The committee recommends this amount of money specifically for child and family resource programs and services to be rolled out in at least six small communities, building on the success of the pilots in Tulita and Ndilo. Members favour these programs and services because it will provide meaningful support to at-risk families. We also strongly believe that the Department of Health should work with the Department of ECE.
Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the Minister did table a good report earlier this week and I just want to refer to some statistics that were brought out of that, one of them being percentage of children receiving services in their home community under the Child and Family Services Act. They set a baseline for 80 percent and they did a lot better than that, they had 87.5 percent, which is great, but looking at those numbers it also tells me that we’re putting more stress and more pressure and more workload on our social service workers and those that provide similar work.
Just below that they talk about the percentage of children receiving services in the their home or with a relative under the Child and Family Services Act, and that number is 59 percent. I know we all come from small communities that we talk about, and we see this firsthand where grandparents could be in the statistics where we’re putting stress on grandparents who are taking care of their grandchildren, or siblings or aunts and uncles who take care of children on behalf of families who can’t, that the number of communities with a child and family services committee initiated.
In 2012-13 the department set a target for six. The actual numbers that they had were zero, and the Minister alluded to that earlier. The number of foster families in the NWT that comes from this report is 132, and we do know that there is a shortage of foster families in the Northwest Territories. As a result, the committee does recommend that this money goes towards programs and services that would affect the child and family resources in the communities.
I just want to make note, as well, that come March, I believe March 5th it is, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the department are going to receive a report back from the Office of the Auditor General specifically on the Child and Family Services Act and it’s going to have a lot of recommendations, it’s going to have a lot of concerns that were brought up that were audited. I believe this committee wants to take an approach in addressing some of these concerns and how they can be addressed sooner than later. Although we don’t have the Auditor General’s report in front of us with any of the actions that need to be taking place, committee recognizes that there’s going to be some dollars that are needed to address these concerns and try to deal with it in a fashion where we can address it at a sooner date.
Mr. Chair, that’s all the comments I have for this, but I believe there is some strong content in there. Speaking with some of the social workers back home and throughout the Beaufort-Delta and Sahtu regions, I do know there is a need for added resources to address some of the needs with child and family resources that we have in the communities and, in some cases, lack.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just want to highlight the second part of the motion that encourages the Department of Health and Social Services to work with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to house child and family resource centres in the schools.
Interestingly enough, some Members attended a presentation the other morning by a couple of early childhood development experts and one of the points that they raised was that putting early childhood development programs in a school encourages the family to accept school as a good place to be, encourages kids to accept school as a good place to be. They learn from an early age that the school is a good place, that it’s a safe place, that it’s a fun place, and it may help us in terms of our attendance.
That’s the second part of the motion that wasn’t referenced by Mr. Moses, and I think it’s really important that this can be a really valid program particularly for our small communities, any community, but the motion references small communities in particular. I think the initial results from the pilot programs from this year for the child and family resource centres was that they were pretty positive, so committee felt very strongly that this is something that needs to be expanded, and I think it fits in with the goals of the Assembly in terms of early childhood and also prevention and promotion.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to committee for putting forward this motion. The particular pilots that were mentioned are actually pilots that are being run by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, but recognizing that there’s a lot of similarity in some of the things that we’re trying to do with respect to early childhood development and the communities. We do have our Healthy Family programs, and we do have those currently in 15 communities throughout the Northwest Territories, and some of those communities are providing supports to other communities. We have put money in the budget this year to enhance and provide some stabilization funding for those Healthy Family programs so that we can continue to be effective, but until we finish those pilots and we have an idea of what those programs are doing, it might be premature to identify a $1.2 million ask in this particular area. Also, we have a fiscal strategy and we do have some limited funds moving forward and we have to find $30 million over the next two budgets in order to continue to meet our fiscal framework, so there are certainly some challenges.
With respect to the second part of the budget, absolutely, the two departments need to continue to work together, and we will continue to work together. There is clearly some overlap around the early childhood development and we are partnering significantly in moving forward on the ECD.
We will not be supporting this motion at this time even though we will continue to do the second part of this motion.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is defeated.
---Defeated
Committee, we’re on 8-31. I can go back to Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I said, there are some concerns that I have with this section of the budget and rather than get into detail I would like to just come right out and I’d just like to read another motion into the House.
