Thank you, Minister I mean Mr. Speaker. Okay, for the Health and Social Services. Many NWT residents have voiced that they want mental wellness and addiction recovery support in their own communities. Currently, most of the positions for this work is located in Yellowknife. But what plans are underway to increase more staff in the regions?
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Member for that question. The focus recently in Health and Social Services has been to provide communitybased funds that have specific applications for services and programs that communities or Indigenous governments, in some cases municipal governments and NGOs, can apply for to create service delivery in their communities.
So this year we announced an addictions recovery and aftercare fund which can be accessed for hiring communitybased counsellors, and those counsellors could support two kinds of projects:
Projects that support individuals living in or working towards addictions recovery; and,
Projects that support addictions recovery and aftercare programming in the community.
So this has been a very popular fund. 13 proposals received so far. And just at a quick scan of this list, I don't see that there is one from Tlicho community services agency but certainly one would be welcomed.
We have other communitybased programs. I won't go through them all but I'll just say there's a peer support fund; there's a suicide prevention fund; and there's the ontheland healing fund.
The purpose of these funds in general are all the same which is to provide communitybased responses to issues that people identify. Thank you.
Thank you. In the field of mental health and addictions, we often hear that we must meet people where they are at. Are there outreach workers in each community? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if the community has used the funds that I'm talking about to hire counsellors, there may, in fact, be someone in place who does addictions outreach, otherwise that would be a function of the community counselling service that exists in either inperson, virtual, or telephone form everywhere throughout the NWT. So community counselling is the place to go for immediate sameday follow-up.
I also wanted to mention that where communities have connectivity, we have a mobile phone app called Wagon, WAGON, which is an interactive aftercare and recovery app which is available to residents who would like to try it out and engage with the supports that are provided. This was developed by the Edgewood institution in Nanaimo, BC, which many Northerners have visited for their addictions for the facilitiesbased addictions treatment. Thank you.
Thank you. Can the Minister identify what specific communitybased programming is in place now to support people struggling with addictions between the age of 20 to 40 years old?
Yes, thank you. I just went over the general list, the community counselling program, which I just mentioned, and the fact that it is now transformed into a sameday service. There are child and youth care counsellors which are offered jointly with ECE in the schools which provide support to youth. There are the Emental health options which I just mentioned, Wagon, but there are others. There are facilitiesbased addictions treatment. There are no facilities in the NWT so these are facilities in the south which we contract and people attend.
We have psychiatric care and treatment available in the Northwest Territories. We have the NWT Help Line to call with immediate needs. And then I'll just mention again the three specific funds:
Ontheland healing;
Community suicide prevention; and,
Addictions recovery peer support.
Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Monfwi.
Thank you. How does the Department of Health and Social Services work with other department to provide wraparound supports to people in their 20s to 40s 40 years old struggling with addictions such as child care, counselling, career coaching, income assistance, etcetera. Thank you.
Yes, thank you. Providing those wraparound supports is very important. It's not just the work of one department; it is often the work of many departments. And I'll give an example:
Right now, we're asking for an expression of interest in transitional housing for people who are exiting facilitybased treatment and require a place to live while they maintain their sobriety and build up some stamina in that area. So we're working with the Housing Corporation on that. We work with ECE on issues like income assistance. We work with Justice. This is really a crossdepartmental approach.
As the Minister of Justice said earlier today about the therapeutic community at the South Slave correctional centre, this is a place where people can obtain their sobriety while serving their sentence and can then move into a continuum of service which includes not only Justice but as I say, Housing, ECE, and Health. So this is an area that's new. It's one that we're developing and we're very keen to receive feedback on. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
