Thank you, Madam Speaker. Through you, I would like to thank the honourable Member for giving me an opportunity to respond to a question of this type. I want to indicate that the Northwest Territories school health program includes lessons on abuse prevention in grades one, two, six, seven and eight, and all schools are required to teach the program.
It is our practice and philosophy to use a holistic approach to teaching and learning and, for this reason, the health program includes lessons on decision-making, assertiveness, handling stress and other skills to help students deal with a variety of stressful situations, including possible sexual abuse.
I would also like to add that we are currently developing a handbook to help school personnel deal more effectively with child abuse. The handbook will include ways to recognize the symptoms of abuse, how to handle disclosures, how to report abuse and how to work with the abused child in the school setting. By helping the school personnel to deal with child abuse, we are, of course, helping children. The handbook will be in place for the new year.
I want to indicate to the honourable Member, as well, that the handbook to help personnel is being guided by a very effective and committed inter-agency committee with representatives from Health, Social Services, Justice, the RCMP, and the NWT Teachers' Association. The feedback from educational boards and schools on the draft version of the documents has been very positive. This appears to be a much needed resource.