Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. The department's business plan identifies that they are working to develop after-care programming with the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. I am wondering where the department is at with this work and how soon we can expect to see a made-in-the-North after-care program that includes supportive housing. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for the question. The department does, indeed, have a mandate commitment to establish nine transitional housing units for individuals returning from addictions treatment. The timeline on this commitment is completion by fall of 2023. Work is under way. The jurisdictional scan, research into best practices, and the scan of existing services have all been completed. These pieces of work will be used to inform the development of an NWT model for these transitional homes. To achieve an item of this nature, we need to work in an integrated manner with my colleagues in housing, ECE, MACA, and Justice. The department is currently designing an intradepartmental approach to the development of this model, and the development of the model is anticipated to happen next month followed by consultation with stakeholders through the spring. The model will then be finalized and put in place for planning purposes by the summer of this year. Thank you.
I am wondering if this review that the Minister is speaking of will also include supportive living for people with mental health and addictions but also their families, supportive living directed towards families?
Specific programs for individuals with mental health and addictions is out-of-scope for this supportive living review that the Member referenced. However, we do recognize that individuals may have co-occurring disorders. That is to say, they may be disabled and also have an addiction, and that will certainly be considered in the main work around mental health and addictions recovery.
I hope that will include families, as well, because people with mental health and addictions and disabilities and addictions are also parents, and coming by supports for families in the North is a very big challenge for people. One of the priorities of the 19th Assembly is to increase the number and variety of culturally respectful community-based mental health and addictions programs, including after-care by providing services for individuals with addictions, such as Wellbriety and AA programming. This is to reduce the number of returns to treatments and increase the length of time between treatments, as well. The timeline identified for this deliverable was spring 2021 for that work to begin. I'm wondering, what improvements to after-care support services can residents expect to see in 2021, and do these improvements include supports for families or after-care for supports for families? Does it include matrix programming, or does it include life skill development, as well?
That was about 10 questions. I'll do what I can here. Certainly, the department is on track to deliver a number of programs at this point. We are preparing to roll out our peer support program, which provides money on an application basis to communities to set up things like AA and Wellbriety groups to assist people in retaining their sobriety. This work is on target, and we'll start on April 1st of this year.
In addition to that, the department continues to work with Indigenous governments and Indigenous government organizations to assist them in accessing the On-the-Land Healing Fund. Of course, we know that that has a wellness and addictions treatment focus and is a flexible fund that can include families and after-care as a focus. That fund has been in place since 2014-2015. The funding is available during each fiscal year, so there will be a new opportunity to obtain funding after April 1st of this year.
There is work going on to establish a managing alcohol program in the NWT as well as a model for better access to detox at the community level, that is to say, outside of the hospitals. The timing on this commitment, these two commitments, managed alcohol and medical detox, are to be completed by 2023. It's anticipated that, even though some of these items are not going to be implemented immediately, they will be in development, and if they can be expedited, that will certainly happen. I think that what's really important to understand in this area, and I'm sure my colleague is aware of, is that these are big and complex issues. It takes time to address them. We are working through the issues that we know need to be addressed and to improve the quality of the services that we provide. As I say, if we can get to them sooner than we think, of course, we will.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I apologize for my wordiness. I'm trying very hard to concentrate, but all the talk of toilets from Mr. Simpson, I regret the water I drank today. Will the Minister commit to working with the Department of Justice to bring together after-care support team that focuses on wellness for all NWT residents that are returning from institutional care back to the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
After-care support is, obviously, a shared responsibility. We talked about transitional housing and how we would need to partner with ECE, Justice, MACA and housing in order to bring those transitional housing units to life with appropriate programming. We would certainly be continuing our relationship with Justice on services like the Wellness Court and integrated case management as well as the integrated service delivery initiative. I think what I need to understand from the Member is more specifically how having yet another level of integrated service would serve clients more effectively than the services that we already have either in place or in development, how they would be different and why it would be valuable to put yet another layer of integration into place. What I will commit to doing is to having further conversations with the Member to understand what she's proposing and the value that it would add to the work already under way, and I'm available to do that at her convenience. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
