Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate all the comments and feedback with all Members of committee as well as the Assembly here. We've also heard from our education leaders. We do meet with them on a regular basis, and some of the concerns that were raised here today were some of the concerns that were brought forward with our education partners as well. So we definitely are listening and trying to make those changes that will be in the best interest of our staff as well as our students.
Beginning with the inclusive schooling for junior kindergarten, I know it was brought up by everyone here and you see in my opening comments and in the funding here that we did increase funding for junior kindergarten specifically around the inclusive schooling. I can confirm that it will be in the base moving forward, that this funding is going to continue.
We also had some comments around the child and youth care counsellors. We did do a really good presentation at lunch to standing committee, and I think we got into a lot of detail at that meeting, and that meeting was public. I'm sure it's going to be on the Legislative Assembly Facebook page, if you want to get into more detail on the questions there. That's just a great program, with the collaboration of working with the Department of Health and Social Services to address some of our biggest concerns and the community's on mental health, and I know there was discussions around addictions and suicides as well. Like any other program, we're going to monitor that and make sure that it's working well. As it rolls out, we'll be able to give better updates on how these child and youth care counsellors are working in the Deh Cho and the Tlicho, as we move into the next steps of implementing it throughout the Northwest Territories.
We also had the career and education advisors. There were some concerns there. Obviously, they are two different programs; one is focusing on mental health counselling in the schools, and I agree, I think we need to get some of this information out to our students at a younger age. Not as far as kindergarten, as I heard mentioned, but I think we do need that, to get that information out to the schools, and having these career and education advisors traveling throughout the North and helping students decide what career paths they want to take and education that they need to get to either a post-secondary or to another career is going to be very important.
I know tying in with our high schools' pathways, pathways to graduation, as Members know, we did give an update to committee on this and we'll be looking at implementing the high school pathways in the 2019-2020 academic year. So that gives us about a whole year to really get out and consult and work with our partners, work with our families and our communities, and get that information to them and get their feedback and input as well.
I know MLA Green mentioned the shared services report. Currently the steering committee that is working on that is developing a response to the report, and we'll be sharing that with committee as soon as that response comes out, just to have Members updated on that.
Early childhood funding, childcare, we did sign off on an agreement with the federal government, and we will be sharing that action plan with Members once that's all finalized. I know some of that funding was for this fiscal year. One good thing that came out of that is we are able to carry over funding that we're not going to be able to spend this fiscal year. I know it's late into 2017-2018, and some of that funding is going to be available come April 1st, from this fiscal year, here.
The foundational review, I know that has been a big concern and has rendered a lot of questions in the House. We're still waiting on that report. I gave an update last week on where we are with the foundational review. I appreciate all the Members who took the time to give feedback and comment into that review, and once that review is completed, we will be making sure that we do a management response. Everything that I said on Friday's Minister's statement will continue, staying focused on that. With regard to programs, I think we're going to have to see what came out of that foundational review before we move forward, and working with the Aurora College.
I know one Member has brought up that it would be nice if Aurora College could work on their own, focus on their own path and doing things on their own, but this is public dollars that we do fund Aurora College with, so we do need to be a part of that process when we're looking at the programs and the way they run their shop, over at Aurora College. There are concerns about the level of our students when they're graduating. Back in the previous government, we started working on the education renewal process. We know that there are a lot of new programs, pilot project; we have a lot of working groups that have education leaders on there, as well as our partners. So moving forward with this renewal, we're going to see some positive things coming out and, as some Members mentioned, we want to make sure that our students have all the supports, the resources they need, so that when they graduate, that they would be able to go into further post-secondary or get into a career that they need. As I mentioned, we'll continue to keep committee updated as we go out and consult on the Pathways to Graduation project.
I'm trying to see what else is in here. As you mentioned, Mr. Chair, as we get into the detail on the budget and go page-by-page, we'll get into more detail on some of the questions.
The arts funding, the strategy. As I mentioned when I got questions in the House, I will be working with the Department of ITI to look at what options we have moving forward to develop a strategy, but also looking at things as some Members mentioned with the structural side of things, and we'll have those discussions with the Minister of ITI. As I mentioned in the House answering questions, the Arts Council will be a big part of that. They are the experts and they do represent a lot of the organizations and some of our artists in the Northwest Territories.
I know trades was also mentioned. We just released that strategy, and I think we're going to see some really good things coming out of that strategy. As Member McNeely had mentioned last week: how are we getting support? How are we supporting them to push out the people in the trades area? I think that the apprenticeship trades and occupational certification strategies are going to address a lot of those challenges and gaps. The steering committee and working group, which are mainly comprised of industry personnel, they're the ones who are implementing it, so we're going to reach out and try to get an update from them on where we move forward.
Senior home heating subsidy, ours supports the seniors. We continue to make those supports and make the changes that are benefitting seniors thought the Northwest Territories, and we just made a couple of those changes over the past fiscal year.
We also heard a little bit about the childcare benefits. We made changes when the Canada Child Benefit came into place. We made changes, as well as making changes to the NWT Child Benefit, putting more money into the families of low to modest income, and we're going to continue to support them, as well as support our childcare providers.
The arts funding, as I mentioned, we're currently looking at all the funding that, collectively, all departments fund to the artists and the organizations throughout the Northwest Territories. In my department, we fund over $2 million, and I think it's sufficient in terms of how we support our artists throughout the Northwest Territories, as well.
In terms of support to local radio stations, the funding that we did get with the signing with the federal government, we do have allocated funding that's going to the local radio stations. So a lot of them got a bump up, and we want to continue to look at revitalizing our Indigenous languages throughout the Northwest Territories and we have an ambitious agenda to try to address that.
Small Community Employment Support Program, I tried to get into that, but we'll get into more detail. I know the rural and remote committee is doing a lot of good work providing direction and giving good feedback on how we roll out that funding. With the increase of $3 million, we've seen a lot of uptake right throughout the Northwest Territories, where, before, with that $1.2 million, it was not fully allocated, but with that increase, I am sure we can be spending that full funding by the end of this fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we get into detail, we will get into that.