Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won't go into the whole avenue of all the people we have working right now in our communities. As far as alcohol and drug workers I know that as a government, it's not our job to try to do away with workers who are out there right now. I do have some concerns about this program. What curriculum is this going to be set up on? Where are you getting the baselines for setting up this curriculum? Is it a southern program that is particularly targeted to exactly what we are doing here? Are the prevention counsellors in the south that deal with the whole umbrella of mental health the way we are looking at doing it? Is it something we are doing strictly for the NWT? If we are going to be training somebody in the mental health area, what kind of training are we going to be giving somebody who is working at a community level right now, in alcohol or addictions counselling? What kind of training are we going to be giving them to now call them prevention workers under the umbrella of mental health? Is there a model in the south that we are looking at to design ours after or are we dealing with other programs that are already around and we are just going to call it something else because we want to give it our own brand name? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we are working towards a northern solution to the problems, the significant problems that face us. We recognize that having just a narrow focus of alcohol and drug skills is not necessarily the best level of skill to deal with some of the problems as clients and people walk through the door. Invariably, there is a multitude of presenting problems. We want to be able to develop the basic skills in the workers to recognize what some of those other presenting problems might be and where they would go as a next step in terms of trying to provide the best service possible to the particular client. We are going to be working to develop this with the people in the field, with the college and we are not going to attempt to reinvent the wheel. I know there is still going to be a significant alcohol and drug addictions component and I know there is already lots of work that is there for us to access and we intend to do that as well. Thank you.

Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to raise a couple of questions on the integrated service delivery model again. I just heard the Minister indicate he would be looking at doing the briefing tomorrow. I look forward to that. There are so many questions I have and it seems like this is a holistic approach to this whole issue of alcohol and drugs and mental health. However, right now, the system we have in place, especially in the communities I am familiar with, are delivered through a contract with the aboriginal organizations, mostly the band councils. I am just wondering what will happen in the cases where there is contracts with the band councils? Up to now, many of my colleagues, including myself, have raised the issue that alcohol and drug workers were underpaid and a lot of times were long-term employees that really had not seen any increase in their salaries for, in some cases, many years. The argument that was put forward by the Department of Health and Social Services was they couldn't do anything because the contract was with the band councils and it was up to the band councils to increase their wages as they saw fit. I wonder how this is going to work. Is this department looking at pulling the contracts from the band councils? How are we dealing with this? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, right now the majority of alcohol and drug workers work under the various authorities. Where there are contracts with individual bands, we will sit down with the authorities to discuss the best way to provide the service and to make sure that we have as integrated a service as possible.

I would like to point out as well, Mr. Chairman, existing services at the community level that are there, that have been identified by nearly everyone and by this House and Members over the years as being uncoordinated and fragmented and not working collaboratively. So the attempt is to take the resources we have, add where we can and try to bring them together so they work more effective as a team. So we will sit down with the bands that have alcohol and drug workers on their staff and we will, with the authorities, try to come to a mutually agreeable solution as to how to make sure that no community is left with out the resources that have been voted by this House to improve a lot of the new prevention workers. Thank you.

Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, I also wanted to know how the certification of the prevention workers, as is being referred to in this case, are going to be certified. How is the certification process going to take place? We have many alcohol and drug workers out there who are going to require support through the transformation of being alcohol and drug workers to a certified prevention worker. I am wondering are they still going to stay on the payroll? Are these people going to be expected to go through the Student Financial Assistance Program? Are we using the School of Community Government on this to bring them up to the level that this department is expecting them to be?

Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this is going to be a phased-in approach. We realize that the incumbents are going to require assistance and training. We have training money and the money that we have allocated to us to do that and we are going to do an assessment of each worker to see what their needs are. We intend to work this, as I indicated to the Member for Hay River North, through the college. We want to develop the curriculum. We also recognize in some cases we may be in situations where there is going to be some type of grandfathering arrangement made, which gets back to my fundamental commitment that we are not here to get rid of people and to disregard the many long years of work that many of the alcohol and drug workers contributed to their communities, often, as has been pointed out, at very, very low pay with no benefits. So we want to make this a proactive and positive process. Once we get established, hopefully we will have people who choose to take the prevention component or certification as an area they want to get into coming out of the college as graduate, but the first little while is going to be taken up with making sure that the workers in the field have the skills to do the job. Thank you.

Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, that question seems to be fairly clear. However, we do have some people that are already in the field, especially the ones who are doing counselling at the Nats' Ejee K'eh facility on the reserve, for example. The counsellors there already have certification through the Nechi Institute. What kind of requirements and what kind of certification are they going to require? Are they also going to be expected to have certification as a prevention officer or is there another level of certification that they are going to require or are their duties going to expand? Are there going to be any changes there?

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, part of this process is to allow for equivalencies. But the bottom line intent is to come to an agreement on the basic level of qualifications that is required to do the job and then work to bring the people to that level or above. So we are going to be looking at all parts of the system and we are going to be considering allowing for all equivalencies to see what the training requirements are and transferability of skills that may have been learned and training that may have been received in other areas like Nechi. Thank you.

Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's also indicated in the document put forward by the department that you would be looking at primary community care teams. I am wondering, up to now in my riding we've been trying to set up interagency bodies to deal with wellness and Health and Social Services. We've been having a very difficult time securing funding to support these organizations and these groups. I would like to ask the Minister, these teams, because they are community-based, will they have any funding to support them?

Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the intent, as I indicated a little earlier is to take the resources for the most part that are currently in communities and to work with them under a more collaborative framework, an approach that allows us to work cooperatively and collaboratively. In the case of the alcohol and drug workers, we want to reclassify them and broaden their skill level. But they, as well, will be part of working with the nurses and the social workers and the community health reps that may be there and other resources, the family violence people, for example. We want to look at all the money we are spending at the community level and the resources that are there and come up with a process that is going to allow us to better integrate them. As we look at finalizing an integrated service delivery model and the basic level of service that should be in each community, there may be funding requirements but that we haven't determined yet what that would be. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said before, we tried to set up that type of body, not under the same title but the same players. One of the problems was always who takes the lead on this. Who carries the ball? Who does administrative? Who does the documentation, the writing, the legwork that is involved? Could the Minister point out to me, of all the different players who are going to be involved in these primary community care teams, the nurses, whoever else, social workers, alcohol and drug workers, who would be the point person on these teams?

Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That will probably vary. In some cases, for example, if we use a broader look at some of the authorities. In some authorities, the CEOs are doctors; in some cases they are finance people that have the skills. In some cases, they are people who were in the social service field. At the community level, we are going to have to work out with the communities what makes the most sense, depending on the resources they have in a particular community. But the fundamental intent is to bring them together collaboratively. Who will be in charge when a final decision is required has yet to be determined in each community on a community-by-community basis. Thank you.