Thank you, Mr. Chair. The committee recommends this amount of money specifically for child and family resource programs and services to be rolled out in at least six small communities, building on the success of the pilots in Tulita and Ndilo. Members favour these programs and services because it will provide meaningful support to at-risk families. We also strongly believe that the Department of Health should work with the Department of ECE.
Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the Minister did table a good report earlier this week and I just want to refer to some statistics that were brought out of that, one of them being percentage of children
receiving services in their home community under the Child and Family Services Act. They set a baseline for 80 percent and they did a lot better than that, they had 87.5 percent, which is great, but looking at those numbers it also tells me that we’re putting more stress and more pressure and more workload on our social service workers and those that provide similar work.
Just below that they talk about the percentage of children receiving services in the their home or with a relative under the Child and Family Services Act, and that number is 59 percent. I know we all come from small communities that we talk about, and we see this firsthand where grandparents could be in the statistics where we’re putting stress on grandparents who are taking care of their grandchildren, or siblings or aunts and uncles who take care of children on behalf of families who can’t, that the number of communities with a child and family services committee initiated.
In 2012-13 the department set a target for six. The actual numbers that they had were zero, and the Minister alluded to that earlier. The number of foster families in the NWT that comes from this report is 132, and we do know that there is a shortage of foster families in the Northwest Territories. As a result, the committee does recommend that this money goes towards programs and services that would affect the child and family resources in the communities.
I just want to make note, as well, that come March, I believe March 5th it is, the Government of the
Northwest Territories and the department are going to receive a report back from the Office of the Auditor General specifically on the Child and Family Services Act and it’s going to have a lot of recommendations, it’s going to have a lot of concerns that were brought up that were audited. I believe this committee wants to take an approach in addressing some of these concerns and how they can be addressed sooner than later. Although we don’t have the Auditor General’s report in front of us with any of the actions that need to be taking place, committee recognizes that there’s going to be some dollars that are needed to address these concerns and try to deal with it in a fashion where we can address it at a sooner date.
Mr. Chair, that’s all the comments I have for this, but I believe there is some strong content in there. Speaking with some of the social workers back home and throughout the Beaufort-Delta and Sahtu regions, I do know there is a need for added resources to address some of the needs with child and family resources that we have in the communities and, in some cases, lack.