Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member's statement today was needing help in our small communities for mental health issues. Is the Minister of Health willing to work with us Regular Members and myself, in particular, to get these teams into the communities to assist our local people who need help in our small and remote communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We recognize that mental health is an important and challenging issue. There are, in fact, resources available right in the community. The child and youth counsellor position at Mangilaluk School is filled, and it is available to anyone who needs the help. There are some vacancies in the Community Counselling Program, but we have, as the Member may know, recently taken a new approach to community counselling so that there aren't wait lists.
He mentioned children, and I have a few things to say about children. The kids help line is available to children and youth. It's available by phone. It's available by text. It's available by Facebook Messenger. It's available by live chat online. It's a great resource. There is a lot there for kids. I also want to mention the Strongest Families Institute app. This is something that people can obtain a referral to through the Community Counselling Program. As I mentioned in my statement yesterday, there have been very good reviews about how helpful the counsellors are in that program. The Breathing Room app, which will be next of our five mental health initiatives, will be live on April 1st, and it is specifically for youth with anxiety and depression.
Finally, I want to promote the Nipaturuq magazine, which I sat here and read yesterday afternoon. It comes out of Inuvik. The third issue is all about mental health. It has first-person accounts of how people are coping with mental health challenges and how they are moving themselves into wellness. I don't know where to obtain that magazine from, but I am sure that the people in the Delta are familiar with this literary award-winning magazine produced in Inuvik focussing on mental health at this time. Thank you.
It sounds all good on paper with what we are providing with regards to services. We do have a shortage of counsellors in our community. The one counsellor, she phoned me the other night in dealing with issues coming up in our communities, but I'm not only talking about Tuktoyaktuk. I'm talking about Nunakput as a whole: Ulukhaktok, Sachs Harbour, Paulatuk. We needed a person, like I said, a person to come in or a team to come in to work with the community on the depression, the alcoholism, anything, anything that they want to talk about to get off their chest. We need help. A lot of people, we don't have laptops for everybody. Not everybody has laptops and iPads and access to stuff like that. I really look forward to trying to work with this Minister to try to help our communities.
Helping communities and residents is what I'm here for. I hear the Member when he says not everybody has the tools to access Facebook, telephone numbers, and so on. There are some accommodations available through the health centre with respect to using the phone, as I understand it. Where communities don't have resident counsellors, there is a travelling team that comes in from time to time with assistance and sees people over a more intense period. I don't know if they would consider sending those teams to Nunakput. I am not sure how well-staffed the resources are there, but that's something I could certainly inquire about.
I want to thank the Minister for that. That travelling team that she just brought up, they should be sent into all communities, other than the central locations. The smaller communities are needing it. You know that, Mr. Speaker; you live in a small community. What we have to do is we have to start trying to help them, in regards to trying to heal them and trying to move forward because this COVID-19 has been hard on everybody. I want to thank, again, the Minister, and when are we going to get these travel teams into Nunakput since she brought it up?
I appreciate the question, but I don't have that operational level of detail with me. What I can do, what I said I would do, is inquire about when the travelling teams might be available to go to the communities in Nunakput, and I will do that on an expedited basis so that the Member has that information.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to meet with the Minister in regard to working together for small communities and try to do a plan, like how I used to do it back in the 17th Assembly, bringing people into the community, as an MLA, travelling with them and to assist them and to help them. I look forward to working with the Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am always available to the Member for Nunakput. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
