Sorry, Mr. Speaker. I got lost with my conversation with my colleague here. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, I spoke about mental health and the work that FOXY and SMASH has done in my region. Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health and Social Services has spoken about the work the department is doing on the Mental Health Action Plan in the stages that they are presently. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister please advise this House what the department is doing in the meantime in this area for the youth? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have been asked a number of these questions similar to this over the last couple of days, but I will try to provide a fulsome answer for the Member. The department is taking a holistic approach, the development of a Youth Mental Health Action Plan to address the challenges that we are facing here in the Northwest Territories, but at no time have we stopped providing services to youth.
Community counselling is available to youth throughout the Northwest Territories. If it isn't located in your community, we have access to it through other means. The department funds a number of on-the-land programs, run and organized by different Aboriginal groups and organizations. Many of those groups and many of those on-the-land programs are focused primarily on youth, so there are opportunities there. We do have specialized treatment options for youth through a number of out-of-territory treatment programs that individual youth can go to when they're struggling to receive some of the services, whether it's for addictions or behavioural issues or other mental health issues that a child or a youth may be having.
We are continuing to move forward with the action plan. Other areas, when it comes to an organization like Stanton and the design of the new hospital there, we've actually created a section for youth which didn't have a designated section in the old hospital, so there are a number of things that we're doing. More needs to be done, Mr. Speaker, I think it's clear. The Members have said it; I've heard it. The public have said it; I've heard it. This action plan will hopefully allow us to move forward in making enhancements and improvements and increasing the services and bettering the services we already provide. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for his answer. Mr. Speaker, in the past I've heard the Minister speak about how they have been involving FOXY and SMASH as they move forward on the Mental Health Action Plan. Can the Minister advise this House if they're getting this organization to engage the youth across the territories about the plan when they do the community tours?
In moving forward with the framework which was already tabled in this House, we did engage with FOXY and SMASH who helped us through the validation exercise to make sure that we were on target on moving in the right direction with the framework. We've also indicated and have talked to them about being part of the validation exercise as we move forward with the development of the specific action plan for youth mental health and addictions, and we're looking forward to having them as partners, as well as other groups like youth ambassadors who have a pretty good insight about what's going on across the North as a whole. So we're absolutely looking to engage and we have already engaged them on the framework. We're excited to engage them on the action plan as well.
I thank the Minister for his answers. During the past two weeks we've heard the Minister talk about funding the department has been giving FOXY and SMASH. Can the Minister advise this House if the funding was for a specific project or a program that the department runs?
We funded FOXY and SMASH in a couple of different ways. We've given them money in previous fiscal years. I think it was in 2016 -- 2015-16 we gave $50,000 and I think last fiscal year we gave them $90,000; that was for some specific things they were doing in the organization. Their engagement in the validation exercise, we provided them with $25,000 so that they could reach out and we're looking at providing them $25,000 so they can reach out again this year. So there are multiple ways that money can flow to FOXY, but this $25,000 was to help engage in the validation exercise.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for that answer. It's actually really encouraging and kind of answered my first question about reaching out to the communities.
Mr. Speaker, in the past I've heard the Minister speak about how they are working with other departments to address this issue. Can the Minister please provide this House with some examples of collaboration with Education, Culture and Employment, Justice, and MACA? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the government has been working really hard to break down silos across the departments and I think in some areas we've made progress; other areas, it's certainly taking longer to reach that progress.
In this particular area -- and I'll just refer to the work on the Child, Youth Mental Health Act or, sorry, action plan. We're taking a real whole of government approach and we're making sure that Education has stakeholders in there and Justice has some stakeholders from within the department to help us develop this plan. They're also going to be included in the validation exercise to make sure that we haven't missed something, as well as other stakeholders like FOXY and youth and some of the Aboriginal governments that are out there as well. So we're really trying to make sure that we have the right people at the table in the design and implementation of this action plan.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
