Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I had question for Premier, but he's not here. So I will wait until tomorrow. But I will ask Health and Social Services questions regarding child welfare system.
We do not recognize people are not in the House. We just go that way. So just for future, please don't recognize if somebody's not in the House. Thank you, Member from Monfwi.
Okay, thank you. Mr. Speaker, the child welfare system in the NWT has 98 percent of children in care. How many of those children became a permanent ward of the state? How many of those children were adopted while in foster care? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Monfwi. Minister of Health and Social Services, I think you got two in there.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have the level of detail that the Member is asking. But what I would like to provide the Member is that knowing that we have a large number of children in care and, you know, and we did a lot of work on child and family services in the last government, and as I was part of that work as Regular Members, one of the things that I don't think a lot of us from that time walked away from was knowing where the children were. So I can provide some of the information that the Member is asking, but I also want to share that a large portion of the children that are in care have been -- the families either have -- are under voluntary service agreements, which then they can be supported. So a lot of those children are still with their families at home but now are being able to be supported by child and family services. And when those children aren't at home because they're supporting the family and, say, family members have to go for treatment or for other things that they may be struggling with to bring that family back together, another large portion of those children are now been in placements either with their extended family or with another Indigenous family within the community or most likely in the community. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for that information. Mr. Speaker, why is the department -- I heard this from countless people, a lot of people are saying this. Why is the department still putting Indigenous children into homes with different nationalities and different cultures from their own? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our old foster care system, you know, there wasn't -- from all of the information that I've been provided and the work that's been done within child and family services is to work with the family to find now somebody who is either within the family, next of kin, a close relative, another Indigenous person. But those families also have to, you know, go through the foster family. We have not a lot of Indigenous foster families, and the more Indigenous foster families and the more family members, when they know that there's children that are possibly, you know, that may be needing to support their own family can become foster families and be flexible, like, within child and family services to say that, you know, like, we'll take on our -- like, your nieces, our nephews, our cousins' children, and child and family services will work with those families. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. This is another question families have been asking, too, is they want to know what is the department doing to reunite children, children in care with families, those who are possible? I know there are some that it's beyond their control; I'm not talking about that. Permanent ward as the last report. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department continues to follow up with families, you know, to try to meet them where they're at and to see what steps need to be put in place in order to have the children reunited into the home. And if there's specific instances where the Member, you know, has families that are feeling that this is not being done, I would encourage those families, you know, to reach out to my office. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Deh Cho.
