Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are related to my Member's statement on the Child and Family Services Act.
I note the intentions of the act are to prevent child abuse within a family unit with the needed education of families to comply with this act. Education First Nations of the act is a winwin for the intent of the act.
Can the Minister advise if the education and awareness of this act has been made to First Nations organizations and has the department advised the organizations at a duly convened meetings of all the regional assemblies. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Member for Deh Cho for the question.
Just by way of background, the Child and Family Services Act came into force in 1998, and it has a provision to be reviewed every five years, and it is being reviewed this year.
The purpose of the act is, and will continue to be, to ensure that the best interests of the child are taken care of. What has changed is that there is more of a focus now on prevention rather than protection. So protection is still present, but prevention needs to be exhausted first.
So there are opportunities for counselling, parenting programs, services to improve housing, treatment if that's required, and any other service that may be helpful to the family to address the issues that they are having and to keep them together, to keep them whole as a family unit.
The act recognizes that the best place for a child is in the family home. And the reason to take the child out of that home is only because they are not safe in that home.
So using this new approach, we have been able to ensure that 92 percent of children who received child and family services are in their own home or in their home communities.
So the practice of taking children out of their communities and cultures is something that we're moving beyond in this era of reconciliation. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister for what not answering my original question. But I appreciate her review of it and the fact that it's more on prevention.
Mr. Speaker, an act as such can lead to criminal charges to a family member depending on the seriousness of child discipline. This act has far reaching implications and presence including in the schools, which parents aren't aware of.
My question to the Minister is when are the communities going to be made aware of this act that will and can affect their families? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, this act has been in force for 25 years. And so child protection workers, social workers, have been using this legislation for 25 years. So it's not new.
In the time that I've been Minister and we've started this review of the Child and Family Services Act, I've been in frequent contact with Indigenous governments to ask for their feedback on what they would want to change in this act since we have an opportunity to make changes in this Assembly.
So I'm not sure what the Member has in mind by "making parents aware." If he has a specific case he would like me to look into, then I would encourage him to contact me privately about that. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I think what I've been alluding to in my first two questions here is whether communities are even aware of this act. Because I come from a small community. We never hear of the Child and Family Services Act in our communities, let alone the First Nations organizations who are accountable to their members and also all the regional First Nations organizations that I speak to, and they said they never hear of the act or anybody ever approaching their assemblies or meetings to make them aware that there is such an act in place.
And as the Minister alluded, I guess the act has been in existence for some time now. The Department of Health and Social Services has staff on the ground in the communities enforcing this act, but they're not going to our community leadership or the meetings or attending any of our functions.
Can the Minister advise if there are staff in many or all of the communities in the North? Mahsi.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member was not a Member in 2018 when the OAG reviewed the provision of child and family services. But that was a very distressing report, showing significant gaps in the provision of child and family services. The result was an investment of 57 new positions in child and family services across the NWT since 2018.
So I can say that there are, for example, two social workers in Fort Providence. Most communities have resident social workers. Some of the smaller communities are served from regional offices.
The other big thing that's happened is that the federal government passed Bill C92 which enables Indigenous governments to create their own child and family services law. We've had a number of inquiries about this act from Indigenous groups in the NWT. And the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation has already written its law and we are now in negotiations with them on a coordination agreement where we will provide services according to their law.
So I'm a little puzzled by the Member's insistence that nobody knows about this act. But I want to assure him that this is a topic of conversation in bilaterals and at Indigenous government tables often and that there is an opportunity now for Indigenous governments to take control in this area. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister for her answer. When I asked questions of lots of my leadership, you know, they'd never heard of the CFS act. The only ones that know about it are the affected families who have been approached and their kids been taken away and then given back to them.
Mr. Speaker, I've been made aware that the CFS staff in Fort Providence will be moved out of the local health centre. I'm aware that they currently have two offices in the building. I see from the supplementary estimates that they will be moved into new leased space within the community.
Can the Minister advise why they need to move the two staff into another leased space when they have adequate office space in the current building? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a situation where the health centre simply isn't big enough to hold all the staff. I said two social workers. There's actually three social workers, a social work supervisor, and two and a half healthy family workers as well as one family preservation worker. So that's a total of 6.5 fulltime equivalent positions providing social services in Fort Providence, and there simply isn't enough room in the health centre. And so they are going to move that staff group into another location. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
