Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have some follow-up questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. My first question is: what is the next action plan that is coming out of the Mental Health and Addictions Strategy Framework? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there are to be three different action plans coming out of the framework. The first one, the Youth Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, is out, and we are already moving forward with that. The next two action plans are the Mental Health Recovery Action Plan, and the next one would be the Addictions Recovery Plan. We are working on both of those now. We hope to have them out in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, preferably in time to help inform the next round of business planning. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for that answer. In this House today and during the budget, we have heard about the Departments of Health and Social Services and Education, Culture and Employment are partnered together to create this new position called Child and Youth Career Counselling. Where are these positions going to be located during the school year and non-school year?
We are going forward with two regions this year. One of the regions that we happen to be going forward with is the Deh Cho, and what we are looking for in the Deh Cho is to establish three new counsellor positions, as well as one new clinical supervisor. The three counselling positions, one is going to be located in Fort Liard, one is going to be in Fort Simpson, and the other one is going to be in Fort Providence. The clinical supervisor is going to be in Fort Simpson.
I think I may have given the wrong question here, and I will have to clarify it. I know there are three positions that are going into Fort Liard, Fort Providence, and Fort Simpson. Are they going to be in the schools year-round, or are they just in the schools during the school year, or is there going to be combination of these positions being placed?
What we heard clearly from the residents of the Northwest Territories, in particular the youth that we engaged during our planning for this action plan, is that youth wanted access year-round to counsellors, not just during the academic year, but they still wanted access to the counsellors through the schools. We will be working with the DEAs in the schools to set up some sort of agreements to articulate how much time these individuals will be spending in the schools. It is our expectation that, during the school year, the majority of their time will be spent in the schools. Outside the school year, the majority or all of their life will be spent out of the Health and Social Services offices that exist. There may be time for them to come out of the school during the school year, because one of the other things we heard is that some of the youth who are struggling the most aren't attending school. We want to make sure that we don't miss those youth as well.
During the school year, the majority of the time will be in the schools. The rest of the time, out of the health centres.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for that answer. I think it's a very positive step. How will the youth from the smaller communities be able to address their concerns? How are we going to be able to address that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We did have a public meeting with the committee, and the information on how we determined where the counsellors were going was included in that presentation, including the indication that, for some of the smaller communities where the school sizes are much smaller, we wouldn't be putting a counsellor in those communities.
Having said that, one of the reasons that we have gone with the clinical supervisor is not only to provide clinical direction and support to the counsellors, but also to help coordinate the outreach to the smaller communities. Our counsellors will be setting up relationships with the youth in those smaller communities. We have also got the travelling counselling support team that exists through Education, Culture and Employment that are going to be reaching out to the communities as well.
There are a number of ways that we are intending to reach out to the kids in small communities, including person-to-person contact and follow-up by phones and other media that exist. We can use other things like teleconferencing or telehealth or even Skype, if it's appropriate, depending on the situation, but we are definitely planning to have outreach to youth in all of the smaller communities as well as the communities where the positions are located. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
