By way of an example, Madam Chair, the North Slave Correctional Centre provides programming to assist with anger management, including moderate intensity family violence prevention and violence prevention programs. One-on-one counselling is offered through a contract psychologist, the traditional counsellor and liaison officer, the chaplain, and through informal sessions with case managers. As I have indicated, every inmate has a case manager assigned specifically to them. North Slave Correction Centre mental health supports are available through the medical department through referrals to a psychiatrist as well.

Additionally, staff are trained in the Mental Health First Aid, as I have indicated previously, which enables our staff to assist the offenders. At one of our other facilities, the Fort Smith Correctional Centre, they provide anger management programming, when available. In essence, he has an institutional psychologist to assist offenders as well. The psychologist also provides an anger management program for offenders. Anger management is also a preventative healing program that is provided by a traditional councillor and liaison officers. As I have mentioned before, it’s some in-house as well as access to health facilities and programs outside of the facilities as well.

Madam Chair, and further, in one section here it also talks about reintegrated strategies will be provided to assist offenders to effectively return to their home communities and families. What types of strategies are put in place for the individual so that they can become a good citizen, a good member of their communities again?

As you see in some of the news reports, we do get a lot of repeat offenders. A lot of them aren’t getting the types of services that they do need in terms of their mental capabilities, literacy, which will be another question that I will have later on is with literacy and work skills. How is the offender or the inmate getting the reintegrated strategy put in place for them, especially when we have small communities? If they do come from the small communities, and they don’t have those follow-up resources to give them the assistance or the probation officer might have a high caseload to give that individual the right amount of treatment and care that they do need. What are these reintegrated strategies and how effective are they? What is the follow-up from the department or the corrections with this individual after he’s released? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, a plan is a cooperative plan put in place with the inmate and the case worker within the facility who has had a history with that particular inmate, as well as probation, whether it be regional or local. They develop a plan together to reintegrate the person back into their home community or whichever community they will end up in, based on their individual needs and programming that they need, where programming is available.

The probation officers have a requirement to meet and discuss case plans with their clients on a regular basis. Every one of them would be different, based on the individual themselves and the level of monitoring that they would need. Every reintegration plan would look different. It’s based on individual needs, risk, and risk of reoffending and what supports they need outside.

At the same time, we are excited by some of the possibilities that have come to us over the last while. In particular, Colville Lake, by way of an example, has approached us and they are interested in working with us to develop a program to help inmates reintegrate into their community specifically. We are still in the early steps and process is there, but we have seen Colville Lake do some really creative things with one of their local citizens who has returned from one of the facilities. They really went way out and took a step beyond to find ways to help them integrate back into the community. We’re excited by what is happening there and we’re really looking forward to coming up with a form of plan. Once we’ve had that in place for a while, it is something that we would be really interested in, assuming it works. I would like to put that proviso in there, we want to make sure it works. We would be really interested in working with other communities, but we see significant potential. The community is going to take some responsibility. The inmates are going to have to take some responsibility. We have probation officers available. You’re right; they’re not in every

community, but they have regular reporting, whether it be by phone or whether they travel into communities. So some interesting things happening here.

Just one other question in regard to these reintegrated strategies or the plan for when individuals are released and go back to their communities. Is this plan part of the application process for an individual’s request for parole? So would an inmate who developed a plan have a better chance of getting parole than one that didn’t have a plan? Thank you.

Parole is more of a federal inmate reality. Regardless, we still have individuals that are on probation and the length of their probation would be dependent on their initial charge and how long they were sentenced and they would vary from one individual to another. Regardless, every inmate that’s exiting the facility will have gone through the process of having a reintegration plan. Some of them can be very, very simple and others can be far more complex, and they can range in duration from very short to very long, but, once again, it’s tied to the sentence and what kinds of treatments or supports that they need to help them to not repeat again.

Just one last question in regard to this and it’s dealing with the integrated programs again, and services for offenders that are outlined in the strategic plan by the department. They do mention literacy and workplace skills development. Can the Minister elaborate on what type of literacy programs are in place for the correctional facilities around the Northwest Territories and how is he working with the workplace skill development? I think in one of his Member’s statements he talked about a possible program for offenders to get a pardon or something. But if you’re developing workplace skills, how is that working to get the individual into a paid job position with a record when they get out of institutions? So just in regard to those two programs. Thank you.

Thank you. Within our youth facility we actually have some teachers in there that are providing basic education to the inmates that happen to be in those facilities. Within our adult facilities we have adult educators that come in on a regular basis and provide training and education supports to individuals who have had it identified within their individual case plans. We also, within the facilities, have work teams. We have people working in kitchens, we have people doing cleaning, we have people doing other things where they can gain some work experience and get familiar with different types of jobs. Now, they are limited because they are within the facility, but we do those types of things and we do provide education as outlined within individual case plans.

Thanks Minister. Mr. Moses is done, I have nobody else on my list. We’re on page 9-31, committee.

Justice, activity summary, corrections, operations expenditure summary, $38.169 million.

Thanks, committee. Page 9-33, Justice, information item, corrections, active positions. Any questions?

Okay, move to page 9-35, Justice, activity summary, services to the public, operations expenditure summary, $5.028 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just interested in the progress report on the offices of the children’s lawyer and how this is working out. I believe it’s a new position. Maybe the Minister could refresh my memory on when we implemented this and how that program is working out. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, the position is in place, it is a new position. It’s been in for just over a year. Anecdotally, we’re getting positive statements on that position and what it is able to accomplish. I will say that there was a blip. Unfortunately, the original person that we had in the position left the Northwest Territories and we had to refill the position, which took a little bit of time. So we don’t truly have a year’s worth of data on the effectiveness of this. Although, we are hearing positive responses and a lot of anecdotal statements that it’s positive and there are good results.

Thanks to the Minister. What does that mean? What is the intent of this office? What would good results look like?

The position is intended to provide representation for youth and children in custody cases and similar types of situations to that. Make sure their voice is heard.

I know there are certainly lots of issues on the custody aspect of children across the Northwest Territories. There is very clear, new thinking that the emphasis needs to be in place to

keep children associated with their families somehow.

In terms of a good result here, is this office helping children stay integrated in a healthy and safe way with their families, recognizing the issues that are being faced here? I think that’s the overall intent of our Child and Family Services Act review and so forth, in which Justice plays a big role.

There’s no question that children benefit from access to both of their parents where all safety issues and no risk of harm to a child is present. We have, in the Government of the Northwest Territories and Justice in particular, a mediation program that is available to parents going through divorce so that they can work through the challenges of separate homes, separate lives with children to make sure that everybody’s got access where safe and appropriate. I think we’re – once again anecdotally, I don’t have any numbers, but we’re hearing positive results from that program that it is working well to help children stay engaged with both parents. Once again, where all things are equal and the safety of the child is taken into consideration. I’m not sure if that’s what the Member is talking about, those types of situations, or is he talking specifically about apprehension under the Child and Family Services Act. Maybe I could get a little clarity.

Thanks for the Minister’s comments. I guess I have to say back at you because I’m not, I guess my question is which of those does this office deal with. I’ve also heard good things about the parent counselling during separation and divorce program, but I thought we were talking about custody issues related to family trauma and so on, other than separation. Maybe I could get clarity, if we know where the focus of this office is or if it deals with both of those situations.