Thank you, honourable Member from the Deh Cho, and thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Recommendation 1

The Standing Committee on Social Development recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services enhance its public communications on addictions treatment.

The committee suggests that this might be accomplished through communications initiatives. They would include plain-language documents describing an individual's path through each contracted facility; profiles or testimonials of participating Northerners, with any necessary concessions to privacy and confidentiality; and the plain-language profiles of each contracted facility, highlighting the benefits that make it attractive as a service provider. Collaborative initiatives like the recent partnership with Poundmaker's Lodge and the Salt River First Nation also provide opportunities for Northerners to engage directly with contracted facilities while within their home communities.

Recommendation 2

The Standing Committee on Social Development recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services enhance community-based aftercare services by encouraging the development of a peer support network, scheduling regular access to counselling and addictions facilities through existing health centre resources (e.g. TeleHealth), and engaging with southern facilities to train territorial healthcare providers in the delivery of family support programming.

At each facility the committee visited, both staff and residents stressed both the importance and the challenge of aftercare. We heard that, even when residents live in the city in which these treatment facility operates, aftercare is difficult, requiring a healthy community network of healthcare support, sobriety advocates, community-based AA or other peer support programming, and facility-led follow-up, both individual (i.e. telephone calls, surveys, or counsellor follow-up) and group-focused (i.e. monthly meetings or celebrations).

Here in the Northwest Territories, we must strengthen connections of aftercare between departments to southern residential treatment and returns to home communities. For example, HSS should make space at health centres available for local sobriety advocates to lead peer support meetings, connecting with the newly sober and the long-term sober. HSS could also work with contracted facilities to develop telephone and/or online aftercare options specific to Northerners. As mentioned earlier in this report, both the Minister and facility staff proposed programming, or training to deliver programming, to support families of Northerners in treatment. The committee supports this proposal.

Recommendation 3

The Standing Committee on Social Development recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services partner with its fellow social envelope departments, community governments, and community organizations to develop a pilot program centred on ensuring that Northerners completing residential treatment are not discharged into homelessness, but instead connected with housing opportunities.

The committee repeatedly heard both facility staff and residents emphasize the importance of safe, secure, and sober housing, and the threats to mental and physical wellbeing posed by homelessness or the return to the site of one's addiction due to a lack of housing options. Guthrie House demonstrates that securing housing for residents upon discharge is difficult, but not impossible. A targeted, collaborative pilot project could connect Northerners in need with housing options, whether in transitional, market, or public housing, and whether in the Northwest Territories or in partnership with contracted facilities that offer housing options, such as Fresh Start and Edgewood.

Recommendation 4

The Standing Committee on Social Development recommends that the Government provide a comprehensive response to this report within 120 days.

Conclusion

This concludes the committee’s Report on Adult Residential Addictions Treatment Facilities Tour 2017. All committee reports are available online at the Legislative Assembly website at www.assembly.gov.nt.ca.