Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Before I give my take on that to the Member, may I just take one moment to answer a question from Ms. Bisaro? We did find the information on the Canadian Mental Health Association. We fund $127,000 to that organization, and it hasn’t changed. It’s the same this year as it was last year or the year before.
With respect to aftercare, I just want to say — and I know this from having sat through the Social Programs Committee, and I think that information is correct too — aftercare is a part of the whole spectrum of treatment. You cannot separate aftercare to somebody who’s going to Homewood in southern Alberta or to Grande Prairie or to Nats’ejee K’eh. When somebody is suffering from addiction and they make a difficult or good choice of doing something about it, they will go tap into some kind of health care or social program personnel we have. They’ll go to health care or they might talk to their doctor or nurse or counsellor or social worker, and then there’s a whole process they are helped through. There are number of professionals who will decide, working with the
client, what sort of service that person needs, and what service they need or they want. It could be going to AA, or if they’re in a severe situation, then they have to be detoxed at the hospital or they may have to be given medication or they may be eligible to go for two to four weeks to a treatment centre somewhere else.
When they come back, our community wellness workers are in touch with them. That’s part of their job. They keep in touch with them; they give counselling to them. In many of the occasions, like Nats’ejee K’eh or any other treatment program — more institutionalized programming — they will be in touch with the clients as well. From a program perspective as well as a funding perspective, there is no demarcation where this is pre-treatment, this is treatment, this is after-treatment and this is aftercare.
I guess the Member is saying, We have said in our strategic plans that aftercare is important. That is part of our treatment spectrum; that is definitely a part of our mandate and the work the community wellness workers are doing.