The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Mervin Tweed): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This section of the Committee of Supply will be considering the Estimates for the Children and Youth Secretariat. Does the honourable minister responsible have an opening statement?
Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson (Minister of Family Services): Yes, I do, Mr. Chairperson. I have copies for the opposition parties.
Mr. Chairperson, I am pleased to outline the direction for the Children and Youth Secretariat for the coming year. The secretariat was originally formed to co-ordinate and integrate services for children at risk in Manitoba.
This government has recognized that services for children can best be provided when all government departments work in co-operation and in the best interests of children. This co-ordination means many of us will have to think about how we build better systems to share information, how we deliver programs, about how we form new interactions with families and with the community and about how the skills of staff are best used.
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We will continue to work with families to develop new approaches to obtaining the best possible care for the children and young people we serve. We know that some families are anxious to try alternative approaches to dealing with service providers and are asking government for more options. However, we must be thoughtful in the way we allocate our resources. It is essential to look at approaches that demonstrate they can make a difference, provide better services, as well as result in healthier children and more stable families. We can contribute to the growth and development within our province.
We know some approaches used in the past did not work. We realize many individuals in our communities need support to help them go and development their own skills. To this end, we have several processes underway which rely on the participation of parents and community groups. For example, the Coalition for Families in Support of Children Living in the Community is working with the secretariat on approaches that will enable families to have more say in the way services are provided for their special needs children. The families have told me they are often frustrated with services that do not fit with their particular circumstances. Therefore, we must be open to proposals that fit families' individual needs while still being fiscally sound.
Over the next 18 months the Special Education Review will be consulting parents, school personnel, and community members concerning service to special needs students in our schools. This comprehensive review will provide a blueprint to improve delivery of services to special needs students and their families.
Through partnerships, I am hopeful that together we can find creative solutions which will ensure government is moving in a direction that supports healthy families and communities. To achieve this result, we looked worldwide for "best practices" and were disappointed to find there was so little research on Canadian models.
I have been impressed with the work I have seen by service providers in our communities, and I believe we must ensure that research takes place so that we can better evaluate the effectiveness of the various programs being used.
We know intuitively that some of the programs we see underway locally are outstanding examples of the direction in which we want to go--Andrews Street Family Centre is such an example. However, too often we have not ensured the research component to these projects so that we can point to their concrete positive outcomes as Manitoba's "best practices." We must be prepared when these "best practices" give us clear examples of change that needs to be made to redirect funding from services which cannot demonstrate effectiveness. We need to be able to point to better methods and to shift our service delivery, confident that it is the right thing to do.
We also need to be building partnerships with the business, community and government sectors. Recently, we co-operated with CEDA, the Winnipeg Free Press, and the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce to host workshops with Dr. Larry Schweinhart from the Perry Preschool project in Michigan. We were reminded by him of the statistics which demonstrate that every dollar invested in early childhood intervention and prevention can save $7 for expenditures that would have been needed in the future without these interventions.
Much of the work being done in projects such as the Perry Preschool program is already being done by practitioners in our day care and preschool programs. We intend to more carefully document where Manitoba models have had success and where more supports are needed to achieve optimal results for our children and youth.
Government needs to ensure that we are moving in a direction that supports healthy families and communities. Part of the success of this strategy will be through developing real partnerships with all sectors of our community. One of the early initiatives that we requested the secretariat undertake was an analysis of the programmatic and fiscal status of each of the initial four departments. Following this, the Children and Youth Secretariat collected and analyzed data on the 50 youths identified by each department as having highest need, a total of 198 in all.
From this analysis we learned that we spent $1.4 million per day, or $1,000 per minute, on this relatively small group of children and youth. The examination of this group began the careful consideration of what intervention strategies are needed to be effective in creating change. Although we have increased spending in many areas of children's services, we did not see the lives of these 200 children and their families, or others similar to them, significantly improved. As an important first step in a co-operative and integrated delivery system that will see Manitoba's children and their families better served, we are redirecting almost $9 million. This includes our newly announced ChildrenFirst fund of $500,000, which, I am pleased to note, has already been augmented by some partner departments.
Funds have been allocated to a number of projects directed at high-risk children. Families and Schools Together is a project that is being funded as a school-based collaborative, family-focused program designed to increase the self-esteem and improve the school performance of at-risk elementary school children. It does this by supporting the natural strength of the family unit.
The Urban Sports Camp is a component of the Urban Safety initiatives under the Winnipeg Development Agreement. The objective of this program is to support measures which enhance the safety of neighbourhoods in the larger community and also prevent crime and violence, particularly among youth. This Urban Sports Camp strategy is focusing on providing alternatives to gang activity. Partnerships with community groups and agencies, such as the Rotary Club, the United Way, Winnipeg Boys and Girls Clubs, Rossbrook House, Andrews Street, and Teen Jeneusse have been ongoing. The Winnipeg Native Alliance has taken a leadership role in this program.
Children and Youth Secretariat will be actively working with my department on the redirection of funds into an emergency crisis stabilization system. This plan will include home-based intervention teams and better use of our child welfare residential care system. The secretariat facilitated the development of a three-phase cross sectoral plan to increase the range and co-ordination of services for technology-dependent children and their families. The third phase is a plan which provides for the equitable distribution of community-based therapy services for disabled children. Proposals for the provision of these services are currently under review.
The Inner City Review Committee was established to address issues of concern to people living in the inner city of Winnipeg. Membership includes the federal and provincial government representatives, the City of Winnipeg, United Way and the Winnipeg Foundation. One of the issues discussed by this committee is the need for adequate nutrition for children and families. The community partners committee has been set up to explore nutrition initiatives for targeted communities with the Canadian Living Foundation. The International Children's Festival is involved with the project for approximately a hundred inner-city youth in the Circus and Magic Partnership, the first such project of this nature in Canada. This is a Winnipeg Development Agreement, Urban Safety initiative. Youth, ages 10 to 13, at risk of involvement with crime, drug abuse and other gang-related activities, will be taught a variety of performing arts to channel their energies into acquiring creative skills. They will then take part in the festival by conducting a workshop called Under the Big Top.
The Northern Summer Youth Education Program received new funding through the Aboriginal Justice Initiatives Fund to provide summer recreational programming for children and youth, ages four to 20, in isolated northern aboriginal communities. Evaluation of past projects showed a decrease in delinquencies in northern communities where this programming was provided.
Members will recall the secretariat was initially established to co-ordinate the efforts of the Departments of Family Services, Health, Education and Training, Justice, and later, Culture, Heritage and Citizenship. I was delighted in January when the Departments of Housing, Urban Affairs, and Northern and Native Affairs were added. I believe we have seven significant departments which are committed to work co-operatively and to develop programs in the best interests of Manitoba's children and youth.
As examples of areas where energy should be focused, we note the disheartening growth in the number of children born with fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effect, as well as growth in the number of children born to adolescent parents. We have seen, however, a growing number of groups coming forward and identifying this as a significant area for work. This year the Association for Community Living is working with the Manitoba Marathon to help develop an aboriginal challenge relay. On Father's Day this year, challenge races will be held in aboriginal communities throughout this province with the proceeds from the races going to support initiatives that deal with fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects. These complex matters require us to work in harmony with families and their communities.
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In the months ahead, we will concentrate on five areas: support for families at risk in the first three years after a child is born, support for preschool children and their families to prepare them for formal learning, reducing the number of adolescent pregnancies, reducing the number of children who are born with FAS, FAE support for a community outreach model that will use schools as a basis for building stronger communities.
As I mentioned earlier, we will examine the matter of adolescent pregnancy. The statistics are alarming. There is a strong correlation between poor families and adolescent pregnancy. Four babies are born to adolescent parents every day. Fifty-five percent of employment and income assistance expenditures can be attributed to sole-support parents who became parents as teenagers, and almost half of all unmarried mothers in the province are aboriginal.
The problem with adolescent pregnancy in our aboriginal communities is growing. We need community-based solutions. As a first step, the Children and Youth Secretariat will soon launch a joint project with Metis Women of Manitoba to examine the issue of preventing adolescent pregnancy. Chief executive officer of the Children and Youth Secretariat and the president of Metis Women of Manitoba will visit six northern aboriginal communities to work with adolescent girls and their mothers to determine possible solutions to this significant problem.
We have begun to work with the various players involved in the issue of fetal alcohol syndrome. We know that, although there are different philosophies to preventing FAS births, everyone is alarmed by the increasing numbers of children born with this life-destroying syndrome. We are also aware that there needs to be a number of players involved in both identifying and working on solutions.
As well as concentrating on emerging issues, we must make sure that successful measures that have protected the security of our children are being shared and applied more widely. For example, to further assure the safety of the children in our schools, we are developing a protocol on personal screening for standardization and implementation in the schools across the province. This protocol will mean that all personnel who have contact with children--teachers, janitors, support staff in all schools across the province--will undergo criminal and abuse registry screening in a regular, systematic way.
We need to keep working to maintain the highest standards for those who work with our most troubled youth. This week I was pleased to announce that the departments of Justice, Family Services, Health and Education are co-operating to fund a child and youth care worker program at Red River Community College. This program was developed in conjunction with service providers who deal with these very troubled youth in their facilities. On their advice, it carefully incorporates both a proactive and an up-to-date, theoretical component.
Red River Community College will use distance education technology to make this training available to northern and remote areas. They have also designed this course to incorporate a significant cultural component.
There is another step in building a supportive net of services for children in caregiving facilities. The systems that we have in place often need to take special measures to assist those children who are in care of Child and Family Services agencies. The Children and Youth Secretariat has been working with the education and social services communities to develop a placement protocol to transition foster children into receiving schools. We believe that this will not only help the child to feel more secure about making the move to a new school environment, but will also greatly assist the school in helping create a positive environment for the child.
Frequently, what is needed when a number of agencies or institutions are working on a particular issue is a framework and some well-understood guidelines on how appropriate information will be shared. For example, a cross-section of government representatives, including Corrections personnel, educators, social service workers, as well as police, community agencies and other professionals involved in service delivery and public protection, worked on the development of a street gang protocol, which is in the final stages of implementation. This protocol is designed to improve and allow for more effective information sharing about individuals involved in street gangs. The protocol will ensure the variety of professionals who come into contact with a street gang member are not working in isolation from each other.
Most of us are fortunate to grow up in families that provide us with a stable sense of our personal and family history. Unfortunately, this is not always the case when children must be taken into permanent care. The secretariat will work with staff of my department and child welfare agencies to development a Know Your Roots project, which will ensure permanent wards of the province have this opportunity to learn more about their personal histories.
Special needs children often have unique considerations as they enter the school system. A transition-to-school protocol is being developed to assist these children to best adapt to the school environment. These protocols are some examples of the steps that are being taken to make sure we are all working in the best interest of Manitoba's children.
Recently I tabled three documents in the House, which were produced by the secretariat and which outline service priorities for Manitoba's children and youth. They were Strategy Considerations for Developing Services for Children and Youth, the ChildrenFirst Strategic Plan, and A Statement of Government Policy on Children and Youth in Manitoba.
The first document is a compilation of the work of the steering committees. These steering committees were established by the secretariat to address priority issues that had been identified through extensive consultations. The steering committees examined five areas: early childhood, adolescence and pregnancy, care and protection of children, critical health incidence, and high-risk children and youth. They also included four working group reports on gangs, the emotional disorders, juvenile prostitution, and youth sexual offenders.
Firstly, I would like to thank those members of the community, as well as the representatives of government departments, who worked so hard on these reports. They were thoughtfully done, and the members struggled with complex issues.
These committees came together to offer the Children and Youth Secretariat written consultation of some specific and very important issues. Each of the committees knew that they were working on one part of the problems facing at-risk children in this province, and that their consultation was part of an overall strategy. Their contribution has been critical to understanding what we need to do to truly help children. My only disappointment is that the hours of work and intensive effort of these many Manitobans have been used as a political issue. I am impressed by their work and know that is something upon which we will need to build. We are not hiding their efforts; in fact, we have taken the unusual step of having these nongovernmental reports made available through statutory publications.
Recent suggestions that government has buried the reports of these committees detract from the important work that they did and the contribution of that work to our overall plan. Some of the most valuable contributions from the steering committees were the identification by community experts of "best practices." Members had diverse experience and worldwide connections. They were able to steer the Children and Youth Secretariat toward some important examples throughout the world where projects that dealt with some of the complex problems that we are facing had some success. These "best practices" have been extremely helpful in our considerations of next steps.
As a result of the secretariat's analysis of the reports, and information provided from its many other consultations, recommendations were focused on fundamental changes that need to occur. This, in turn, resulted in the directions I have mentioned--that is, early intervention, support for families at risk, a stop FAS-FAE program, a campaign to prevent adolescent pregnancy, and an approach to build better school-home-community partnerships through community schools.
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All of the initiatives we are considering implementing will be based on "best practices." A number of projects are already underway. We know we must keep talking to young people whose lives are affected by the new directions we are taking. We know we must keep talking to the communities who support these young people. To this end, we have supported youth conferences, both in the North and here in Winnipeg; we supported the recent Blueprint for Careers conference, the Aboriginal Youth Justice Symposium, and the provincial aboriginal youth conference '97.
We have already distributed a thousand copies of the strategic documents. We have provided over 20 workshops to date, and more extensive workshops are planned. We have made sure our documents have been available to the youth at conferences in both the North and in Winnipeg. It is evident that considerable work has been undertaken by the staff of the Children and Youth Secretariat in the past two years.
I would like to express my appreciation to the former assistant deputy minister, Reg Toews, who undertook the difficult task of laying the groundwork for the secretariat. I trust he is finding his new challenge in the Regional Health Authority as stimulating as his work with the secretariat. I was very pleased when the current CEO, Doris Mae Oulton, agreed to take up the reins after Mr. Toews had left. Her organizational capabilities have already been in evidence.
I want to offer a special word of thanks to the staff, all of them seconded from the various departments, for their pioneering work. I appreciate their continued effort and diligence as we move forward to build on the foundations they have developed.
Mr. Chair, with these few comments, I would invite questions from my honourable friends regarding the work of the Children and Youth Secretariat. Thank you.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): I thank the minister for those comments. Does the official opposition critic, the honourable member for Radisson, have any opening comments?
Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will just want to make a few comments. Actually, I think what I am going to do after that is just--with the notes that the minister has provided for her opening statement, there are a number of issues I would like to follow up from there and then get into some very detailed questions about the very numerous reports and documents that have been produced by the secretariat. It seems that recently there has been more activity from the secretariat. It seemed like for a long while there was not a lot of information that was being made public, but there have been a number of reports and clear directions that were given to this Youth Secretariat. There have been a number of government reports from other departments related to children that this secretariat has responsibility for implementing. I guess I am concerned that of all this information, the reports that are being made public, that are making up the action plan of the secretariat are fairly thin when we look at the tasks that are being taken on by the secretariat. That is one of the things I want to deal with.
It also seems that although there are some positive initiatives from the secretariat, we are concerned that on the big picture, in the larger context in many government departments that have representation through the secretariat, the larger government programs are going in the opposite direction than stated objectives and intent of the Children and Youth Secretariat. In numerous areas, whether it is poverty and housing, support for families and nutrition through social allowance and community programs, health care, education, funding for schools in terms of special needs children through the paraprofessionals, et cetera, there are huge cuts that go directly against the minister's opening statement and the case that she is making for the Youth Secretariat today in their attempt to deal with the large problems that are facing children and youth in Manitoba.
So in that sense, the main objective of the Children and Youth Secretariat which is to endeavour to steer the government's services for children and youth and their families in larger systemic changes and co-ordinating larger changes seems to be missed. Instead of continuing on as they did at the outset with their initial documents going back to 1994-95, Building Healthy Communities and the ChildrenFirst--Restructuring Service Systems from 1995 where they were talking about benchmarks and specific goals, the kinds of goals and specific strategies coming out of the Youth Secretariat now are very much ad hoc. They do not address, other than I think I have seen through--what I have seen so far in the area fetal alcohol syndrome, they do not actually set any goals to reduce things like poverty, child abuse, teen pregnancy, drug addictions by youth, all these various areas that are of serious concern. Instead, we have small projects, some may call them token projects, some of them are good ideas, but they do not embrace the intent of the secretariat, which was to deal with a systemic, co-ordinating role in government in addressing the needs of children and youth who are having to deal with government and community services.
The ChildrenFirst strategy, itself, is a compilation of the numerous working group reports, and it very much has watered down the number of the recommendations that were made. A number have been left out and it seems like a lot of this is cost driven, and I am concerned that although the government has said a number of times in their documents that the needs of children are utmost, it seems like this strategy continues to be guided by cost. There is reference to its going to be integrated with the Service First Initiative which is also a government cross interdepartmental initiative to reduce the civil service and that is of concern.
Some of the reports have produced useful statistics, and that has indeed painted a very bleak picture in many instances, some of the statistics the minister has referenced in her opening statements specifically with regard to the area of teen or adolescent pregnancy. Then when I look at the actual strategies that they are incorporating through their so-called action plan, it just does not seem that they are taking the strongest recommendations in many cases and implementing them.
One of the other concerns that I have is, unlike the mandate of the Children and Youth Secretariat, the initiatives that have come out through the ChildrenFirst strategy and their other activities, as outlined by the minister in an opening statement, is it does not seem that there is an acknowledgement of the links of the different issues affecting children and youth. The links between abuse, mental health and mental illness, poverty, unemployment and how, once someone enters the system in dealing with all these issues, they tend to then become marginalized. It is very difficult for them to function either through their childhood and adolescence or as an adult.
So that is one of the other concerns that I have, especially when we are dealing with poverty, that there does not really seem to be enough of a strategy to address the interrelationship between all these issues and poverty. The minister had mentioned that there is a correlation between teen pregnancy and poverty, but when I look at some of the cuts that are being made, the fact that that is recognized in her opening statement, is not reflected in government policy and even in the strategies that are being put forward through her documents that she has tabled in the House.
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I know that the minister and the Premier (Mr. Filmon) were recently questioned quite extensively on the issue of poverty and children and their families, and it seems that not only with this government, but I would also say in the community with a number of their supporters in particular, there is this attitude that poverty has always been there, and it is something that always has to be there or will always be there, I guess I should say. That kind of sort of resignation and attitude which, I must say, I hear from people that share the government's economic analysis and point of view, cannot be accepted. That kind of attitude of resignation can just not be accepted, and you cannot start from that point when you really want to address the issue. We just have to all agree that we cannot accept the ongoing gap that is growing between those children and their families that are of low means and affluence, that are of low income and those that are increasingly more advantaged.
I am very interested in following up on the funding of the Youth Secretariat and the $500,000 for the ChildrenFirst fund. I am starting to get a better picture now of how that is going to be allocated. The minister has said that there is going to be some augmentation of that by other departments, so I want to spend some time looking at that.
Just generally, as well, in closing, I am concerned when I read through the opening overview of the ChildrenFirst strategy where there is this ongoing emphasis on the individual and this ongoing emphasis on community base. I am concerned that for this government that is code words for their offloading of their responsibility.
I am going to be asking some serious questions in all of this of what is the government's specific role in dealing with their ongoing responsibilities for protecting children in Manitoba, who are being neglected, abused or mistreated, and who grow up in families where they do not have the means to have the ability to fulfill their full potential. I think that is what we want for all children in Manitoba. We want them to have the means and the conditions, so that when they are growing up to fulfill their full potential as individuals to feel like they are a part of the community through all stages of their life, to feel like they are loved and cared for, that they have hope and that they do not, as we have heard through the many reports--I have some of them stacked on the desk here with me now. We have heard from the United Way of Winnipeg. We have heard from another group that went to a national conference in Canada last fall. I have the Crossroads for Canada, A Time to Invest in Children of Families, the Campaign 2000 discussion paper--all of them are saying that we are actually losing the battle in terms of elevating the status and condition for healthy, happy, successful children.
Those, I guess, are the main concerns that I want to raise and comments that I want to make in my opening statement. I will, if I might, then just move right into some questions based on the statement that the minister has just made. I think what I am going to do is start from the back.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): Before I have you move into that, I want to thank you for your opening comments. I would invite the members of the minister's staff to now enter the Chamber. If I could, I would like to ask the minister to introduce her staff to us, please.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, I would like to introduce Doris Mae Oulton who is the new CEO for the Children and Youth Secretariat; Neil Butchard has been seconded from Education; and Leanne Boyd has been seconded from Health.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): If I could ask one of the staff at the table to write the three names down just for clarification for Hansard in the spelling and title.
Now the item before the committee is item 34.1 Children and Youth Secretariat (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $434,400.
Ms. Cerilli: Just to clarify further, the staff that the minister has at the table with her, the person who is with Education, I did not catch their name.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Neil Butchard.
Ms. Cerilli: As I said, I am going to begin by asking some questions based on the minister's statement that she just made. I guess, first of all, I want to deal with some of the last points that she made in terms of us raising issues about the Children and Youth Secretariat's reports and the disparity between the working group reports and the government's documents that she has tabled as being political issues or having them used as political issues.
Mr. Chairperson, this seems to be the latest government tactic in the House: whenever we raise an issue that is deeply of concern to us and many members of the public, we are accused of simply using it as a political issue. I find this quite offensive. I find it offensive to this House; I find it quite offensive to our role as opposition. As we will see throughout these Estimates, there are serious questions to be raised about the difference in what the government heard from the community and their working groups and what they have decided to include in their strategy. I find that problematic.
For her to go on and then suggest that they are doing some great service to the public with their now disclosing the reports from the working groups when I asked since last June for those to be released and had to go through a Freedom of Information search to get those reports and now find that they are in the statutory publications, I find that also is misleading and does not do anything to clarify the situation for the many individuals that worked on these publications and the members in the community who are relying on some leadership from the government in this area.
I know that many of my colleagues have been asking questions about the recommendations in these reports, and I want to ask a question of the minister about the reference on a number of occasions to the identification of "best practices." I am wanting for the minister to clarify how this is being done and what that refers to particularly in light of the reference in the ChildrenFirst document to this being co-ordinated or also included in the Service First Initiative. Are these "best practices," as the minister's statements suggest, that are being sought out from across the world in terms of the best approaches that are being used with children and youth who are at risk, or is this some type of bureaucratic, operational kind of "best practice" as we are seeing throughout many government departments with the Service First Initiative?
That is one of the first areas I want the minister to clarify. I mean, I get a lot of information through a magazine from Europe on youth services in Europe, and I am aware of some very progressive things being done, particularly in Scandanavian countries. We can maybe move on to some of those specifics later, but right now I am just wanting the minister to clarify what "best practices" actually means and how that is specifically being determined for here in Manitoba.
Mrs. Mitchelson: I thank my honourable friend for her opening comments. I guess when she talks about the opposition taking offence to some of the comments that the government makes, I think I need to put on the record clearly the whole intent of the working committees. I want to, at the outset, thank very seriously all of the members of the community and government departments that participated in that process.
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I know that, at the start of those committees as the committees were chosen by the secretariat under Reg Toews at the time, on many, many occasions Reg commented to the members of the committee that they were steering committees of the secretariat, working groups of the secretariat, not working groups to make recommendations to government or to a minister or ministers, but working groups that would do their work, make recommendations to the secretariat, have that information compiled. They would look then at what was intersectoral, would look at redirection of money, not new money. That was made clear right up front when the working groups were established, and my honourable friends across the way keep trying to make those working committees something that they were not, and that is committees to make recommendations to government. They were working committees of the secretariat. They were to look at co-ordination of services, help government to understand how departments could co-operate in a better fashion to provide better service to children.
So I take great offence at the opposition trying to use those reports as something other than what they were intended for. They were working documents of the secretariat. It was spelled out very clearly. I have talked to many volunteers who committed their time to work on those working groups, and they tell me that they knew right up front exactly what their role was and they wanted to provide some support and understanding to the process that the Children and Youth Secretariat was going through.
So that is why I feel very saddened that, when questions come up in this House from the opposition, they take that work out of context and try to use it in some other fashion to be critical of government or the secretariat or the process that was undertaken. So I want to say again, those were working documents done for the secretariat's use in order to compile suggestions and ideas that were intersectoral in an approach to try to ensure that we were breaking down barriers within government and, through identification of where some of the gaps might be and where services could better be provided in a co-ordinated approach, we would take that information and compile it into strategic ways of dealing with the children and youth in our province that needed our support.
So I want it to be clear right at the outset, Mr. Chairperson, that the opposition understood and as--I mean, we can spend a lot of time going through each of the recommendations and each of the working groups' documents, and I will repeat time and time again for my honourable friend until she can understand it clearly what the intent of those reports were and how we have now developed the areas that we want to move on in a co-ordinated fashion within government and also with the engagement of the community.
I think the next issue that my honourable friend raised was the issue around "best practices," and I have said many times and I will repeat again that we want to ensure that the dollars that we are spending are measuring positive outcomes. We want to see good results for the dollars that we spend. We put more money into the system for children year after year through every government department and yet we are not convinced that the services that are being provided are co-ordinated or being used in the best manner possible to ensure that children are being better served. More money does not necessarily mean better service. We need to co-ordinate the efforts that we undertake. We need to break down barriers in departments.
We also need to break down some barriers that are out there in the community. I have held many community consultations that people have participated in and told me that we need to be working more co-operatively. There are lots of programs ongoing out there. There needs to be co-ordination of those programs.
We do not need any more dollars spent on bricks and mortar and administration and overhead. We need the dollars going to the families and the children that need the support and the service. I have challenged the community many times and I will continue to do that and they are up to the challenge, I want to tell my honourable friend. They are looking at how they can work better together out in the community. We are working as government with other levels of government and with other funders to try to co-ordinate our activity.
I know my honourable friend made reference to the United Way report, and we can get into great detail about that report and I hope we do during these Estimates, but the whole exercise was to look at and explore with the community what we could do better, how we could co-ordinate what is happening out there as a result of the economic times and the emerging needs of families and children, what is happening that is working better, what needs to happen in order for us to all get a grip, a handle on how we can better support children and families that need our support.
So "best practices" talks about measuring of outcomes. If we look at--what was the word--Service First, if we have data and information that can be collected as a result of better information systems within government, then we can better measure programs and outcomes, and we can follow children through from birth to 18 years old. We can follow people through into the adult system. If we have better information and better systems, we can better measure what we are doing and determine whether we are having a positive impact on the lives of families and children throughout our Manitoba communities. So that is what we are talking about when we are talking about "best practices."
Ms. Cerilli: I want to get into asking some specific questions, but I just want to respond to the minister for one moment and clarify. No matter what you have said about the working groups and the members of those working groups knowing that they were there to provide recommendations to the government, the government--
Mrs. Mitchelson: Here, again, my honourable friend is twisting what I said. Those were working documents. Members of the community and those committees understood right up front that they were providing information, recommendations to the Children and Youth Secretariat; working committees of that secretariat, not of government. They knew, and they still understand that. As I talked to them last week and the week before, they said they understood clearly what their role was. If my honourable friend has information to say something different, let her tell me where she has that information from. I know what we established when we established the Children and Youth Secretariat, and I know what Reg Toews was trying to accomplish with those working groups.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): Order, please. The honourable minister does not have a point of order.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): The honourable member for Radisson, to pose her question.
Ms. Cerilli: Mr. Chairperson, if I might continue. This is a time for debate and we can disagree here. Unlike in Question Period, we can debate at this point. This is one of the opportunities as MLAs, government and opposition, that we have a chance to exchange views.
I want to clarify for the minister, as she has tried to clarify for me, that no matter what she says about the recommendations that were made by those working groups, whether it is the secretariat or cabinet that made the decisions of which to include and which to exclude from their plans, that is what they will be held accountable for. When there are recommendations in those reports that are good recommendations--progressive, workable, efficient, wonderful ideas that are not acted upon--then that is what we are concerned about. So I just want her to understand where I am coming from on that one.
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I want to move on to ask a specific question about her comments in her opening statement about the focus of the secretariat. Right now, one of the things is a campaign to prevent adolescent pregnancy. There has been some detail in the opening statement as well about parts of this, I do believe, if I can find the page. I am wanting for the minister to describe for me what all of the components are of this campaign on adolescent pregnancy. Here it is. I see here that there are going to be staff who are going to go to six northern aboriginal communities to talk to girls and their mothers. There is going to be some attention to FAS. I am wondering, I know that there are also a few recommendations in the ChildrenFirst document related to teenage pregnancy, but I am not convinced that this is a campaign.
This is one of the areas, I think, that we have some concerns about the weakness of the government's strategy in really addressing this significant problem. The minister in her statements has acknowledged that there are relationships between educational level, poverty, teen pregnancy. We know that there is a higher incidence among aboriginal young women, and this I would think should be a priority area for the secretariat. So I am pleased to see that it seems like that is happening and that we are on the same track there, but I am wanting for the minister to describe what this campaign involves in its entirety and also, as we go through each of these areas, if you could describe the finances that are going to be attached to that and where those finances are going to come from in terms of which department.
Mrs. Mitchelson: As you know, we are sort of into approving the Estimates of the Children and Youth Secretariat. There probably will be, as we move through our strategy on dealing with adolescent pregnancy, we will find some projects that will be announced and undertaken. I am not at liberty right now to share with my honourable friend what the announcement will be, but I can--no, well, my honourable friend laughs, but I want to indicate that we have got money allocated in the budget. The strategy in fact and the campaign is in the process of being developed. We have already undertaken a couple of initiatives. I want to indicate that the Baby Think it Over, the computerized doll that is being used in many of the schools, was an initiative of the secretariat, and we worked with the school system, with the Manitoba home economics teachers.
We have purchased the babies, and they are available to schools to use to work with adolescents. They take the babies home. I am sure my honourable friend has seen some advertisement and some media coverage on this initiative that is presently underway.
I announced in my notes that the Metis Women are travelling with the staff of the Children and Youth Secretariat to aboriginal communities to figure out strategies on how we can best try to reduce the number of adolescent pregnancies in those communities. This past week we have met through the secretariat 300 aboriginal youth around the issue of adolescent pregnancy. I am sure my honourable friend would agree with me when I say that some approaches that I might think might be the most appropriate might not necessarily appeal to the youth in our community that are experiencing the peer pressure and the problems. We need their participation and their partnership in this process.
We will be undertaking a media campaign that will be directed at young men around the issues of teen pregnancy. I do not think we can leave boys or men out of the equation when we are trying to deal with this issue.
We will be looking at some work on the Internet. I know that very often many of those that are living in poverty may not have access to the Internet. I know that many schools are getting up and running, but I think that is one component of trying to deal with the issue and getting information up and running.
There are several different components. We have started a few things, but we are presently working on the consultations with the youth in our community so that we can develop the strategies that will best meet their needs, and we are looking to an announcement around different components in the strategy later on in the spring. So we are in the process now of developing those, and we will be announcing that this spring.
Ms. Cerilli: In terms of the computerized doll program, how much is that costing? What is the number of dolls that have been delivered to schools? Which schools or school divisions are involved? I want to confirm if this is being done through the home economics courses in schools, which we know have been reduced dramatically and we know are option courses and are not necessarily going to be taken by very many students. Because they are option courses, they are not taken by all students. What is the estimate of the number of students that are going to then benefit from this program if it is going to be offered through the home ec courses as an option course?
Mrs. Mitchelson: We have 300 dolls presently at a cost of $8,000-some that are available to be distributed in consultation with the home economics teachers. We agreed to purchase the dolls. They have agreed to do the evaluation. Those dolls will be available to schools on a request basis, and they can be moved from school to school. There are 300 dolls available now, and through the home economics teachers association they will be allocated. My understanding is that it will be in high need areas right throughout the province.
Ms. Cerilli: So am I understanding this correctly? The way this is supposed to work is any teacher or professional in a school that is working with young people could call up the home ec teachers association and apply to have one of these dolls delivered to their school where they could use it as a supplement to their course work, whether that would be in health education, in an English class, in home ec class, or what have you?
Further to that, then, my question was: What is the projection for how many students are going to benefit from this program per year? Tell me a little bit more about the program itself. Is there some kind of unit that has been developed to go with this computerized doll to convince young people not to get pregnant? Is there some sort of time allotment that is going to be allocated with this? What does the program look like in terms of the experience of the young people who are going to participate?
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Mrs. Mitchelson: There is a whole package developed. I would be prepared to undertake to get a copy of that package and share it with my honourable friend, but it includes pre- and posttesting of attitudes. It can indicate neglect.
I do not know if my honourable friend has seen one of these babies or how they work, but it is very intensive. If a student was to take that baby home--and boys and girls are involved in the project--I mean it cries at set intervals that, well, the person cannot determine, just like any normal baby would. They are very realistic, and the baby does monitor and provide a tape of how long the baby has cried before it has been picked up and the soother has been put in its mouth, fed and those kinds of things. So there is a tape there that really does indicate whether there has been abuse or neglect. Part of the whole program, too, is talking about budgeting and cost of supporting a child for food, nutrition, clothing, all of the other things. So it is a fairly comprehensive package, and I will undertake to get a copy of that to share with my honourable friend.
Ms. Cerilli: I do not want to spend this much time on each of these projects because we are going to be here for 40 hours, but I had asked some specific questions about the number of students, and the minister has said that students will take the doll home. So, if there are 300 units, how many students are going to be able to participate in this? I just want to clarify one thing. She had mentioned that there was $8,000 allocated. I am not sure if that covers all 300 of the dolls.
Mrs. Mitchelson: The intent is, that for every student that has the opportunity to take the baby home, it would be for a 48-hour period. Initially, there would be about 12 schools involved and 300 students initially would have the baby to take home for 48 hours, and then that baby would rotate, but there is also practical hands-on discussion around the situation or circumstance of that individual with other classmates. So there is that additional kind of benefit too.
Ms. Cerilli: I just also had to ask you to clarify the dollars. You had said $8,000. Is that for all of the--
Mrs. Mitchelson: Yes, that is $8,000; I think it is just over $8,000 for 300 dolls.
Ms. Cerilli: Moving on then, I want to ask about the project in the six northern communities. Am I understanding correctly that this is a project to assess or plan how to intervene in these communities and reach young adolescent girls or women and their mothers, or is there already a project that is developed in order to do this intervention? Is it an education program, some type of counselling or social work? It seems that the approach that is being taken is not what we heard often works, that young women are less likely to become pregnant as adolescents if they are well educated and see an alternative for their futures than just to get pregnant and not pursue education or work in a career outside the home. I am interested in finding what exactly this project is in the six northern communities.
Mrs. Mitchelson: The Metis Women in discussion with the Children and Youth Secretariat identified this as a real need in Metis communities outside of the city of Winnipeg, but part of the issue for them, of course, is trying to identify what will work for young girls. So it is a matter of going to meet within those communities in the afternoon with a group of young girls, in the evening with their parents. There will be some professional support available at the time too to deal with specific issues or questions that might come up. For instance, the parents in the community might have difficulty determining how to deal with the issues of sexuality and sexual issues with their children. There would be a professional there to help them if questions were asked on how to deal with that kind of issue so they could better prepare their children. The sessions in the afternoon with the young girls would be to deal with the issues that they face, the reasons why they believe there is a high incidence of adolescent pregnancy and what solutions they might believe could work.
Ms. Cerilli: Okay, tell me a little bit more about the program to target young men. I guess the other comment I would make there from my experience in working in a high school in Winnipeg, young women often get pregnant as adolescents to become teen mothers not from young men but from older men who are older than 18 or often older than 20 or 25 or 30. So this is, I think, important, to target the attitude and behaviour of teenage boys, but I just wanted to draw your attention to that common occurrence.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Some of the data that we have for Manitoba--although I know the comments were made that in some jurisdictions where there have been studies done that it is older men that are involved in getting adolescents pregnant, but the data in Manitoba does not substantiate that. So we are having different issues to deal with.
We have done some focus groups with young men around the issue of adolescent pregnancy and obviously, I suppose, sexual activity and the reasons, I suppose, young men participate are not necessarily--I guess the reasons they participate in getting a young--I am having difficulty trying to figure out how to say this--getting a young girl pregnant are different issues than girls. Young girls very often, as adolescents, become pregnant because they have a need to feel love, to be loved; they feel they need something that belongs to them that they can love and nurture, because they maybe have not had that kind of family support or nurturing.
In young boys, of course, the issues are very different, but most of the young men that we did talk to through the focus groups did indicate that there was a need for young men to take responsibility for their actions and for support of that child and that young mother. So I think the issue of responsibility is an area that we have to focus on in our messaging to young boys, and we will be developing that.
Ms. Cerilli: I would agree. After just participating with high school girls in the LEAF conference, Women In Motion--it was an equity conference for young women--they talked a lot about the attitudes of their male peers in high school, but it sounds like this is--again it is focus groups. Am I understanding that correctly? I am wondering if there is a larger plan in terms of the public school system or the curriculum for our school system in terms of how to intervene with this age group of young men.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Of course, once we have a complete understanding on what is going to work and what message will work on young people, that message will be incorporated into school curriculum. It also will be incorporated into any type of media campaign that we might do, and that would be in conjunction with--I think we want the messages to come from youth in any type of media campaign and speak to their peers, rather than having us speak to them around the issues.
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Ms. Cerilli: One final question in this area is--I know that the member for Concordia (Mr. Doer) has raised this to some extent recently, and it has to do with the reduction in the sexuality education unit being taught in the school system, the reduction in health education being taught. There has also be a reduction in the public schools in Manitoba in the number of school counsellors in the last 10 years under this government, and I am wondering if, through the Youth Secretariat or co-ordinated through the Youth Secretariat, there will be any study of the impact on this change on the rate of adolescent pregnancy in Manitoba, if there is any attempt being made to determine if we are going backwards in this whole area.
I know that in the last couple of sessions we have asked a lot of questions about the reduction in health education. It is now being transferred to be part of the physical education curriculum, and it is difficult when it is being handled in this way to ensure a number of things, that there is going to be adequate time spent on this area, that there is going to be an assurance that trained qualified individuals are teaching sexuality education. The minister was just saying she was having difficulty finding the words to describe her intentions. That is common in talking about sexuality, particularly with young people, and it does require someone who is specifically trained in the area. I am concerned that there has been no attempt by this government to ensure that we correlate the strategies through her campaign in this area with what is actually happening in the schools and on the ground in terms of the resources available, the time slots, the teachers and the trained staff available in schools to actually be able to implement what sounds like could be a good new project through her focus groups with youth to develop some type of campaign to address the attitude behaviour of young teenage boys or men.
Mrs. Mitchelson: I do have to admit to my honourable friend that I probably never would be able to teach family life or sex education courses, and I am not a teacher by profession, probably not one of my strengths. So sometimes they have difficulty finding the words. But I do want to indicate that, although there is programming in the schools, the schools are not the only place that support and reinforcement needs to be provided for our youth today. Any of the research that we do have, I am told by staff that have read and understand the research, talks about early intervention, and that is intervention with children under the age of six, has been traced, and there have been outcomes measured that do say that there is, if there is good preschool preparation and early intervention, less risk of adolescent pregnancy. So that is one of the very strong reasons why we need to be looking at a very focused early intervention program which we are in the process of looking at right now. There are activities underway.
But my understanding is, and I think you probably have to get into some detailed discussion with the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) during her Estimates around the whole curriculum and education system, but it is my understanding that the Department of Education has hired Heather Willoughby who is a phys ed teacher to look at this whole issue of curriculum and what needs to happen in the education system. I cannot get into detail around curriculum development in the Department of Education, but I do want my honourable friend to know that we all need to work at it together, and there will be components from Education that will have to be implemented in the whole overall strategy and announcement as we move to that later in the spring.
Ms. Cerilli: I am sure, especially with the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) here, our Education critic, that we will be asking some questions of the Minister of Education in this area. But it seems that the role of the Youth Secretariat is trying to sort of be the watchdog in all these departments for the interests of youth and to ensure that changes are going to be made that are not going to contradict the objectives that it is setting. So with that, I am going to move on.
I wanted to just point out that in the minister's statement she said that the strategy considerations for developing service for children and youth was the compilations of the work of the steering committees, and I think that is an error, that the ChildrenFirst Strategic Plan--and I could tell her the number of the pages for her opening statement, but they are not numbered. So I think that there is an error in the statement, but that is not a large concern.
One of the larger concerns I have is to do with the protocol that is being designed to deal with sharing information of those involved with street gangs. This is going to include a number of the departments that are involved with the Children and Youth Secretariat, Corrections, Education, social services, police. This is the kind of initiative that I think the Children and Youth Secretariat is really designed to do, to develop these kinds of structural interdepartmental systemic changes, these types of protocol agreements.
I am wondering why this particular one is focusing only on gangs. I think, if I could remember the statistic, that the numbers of youths under 18 that are involved with gangs in our province is somewhere around a few hundred, and there are way more children and youth who are involved with the child protection system that are otherwise just involved with youth corrections system that are not necessarily gang involved. It would benefit them, hopefully, and it would certainly benefit the number of community and government staff that are trying to support them and work with them to have the use of this type of protocol.
I am wanting for the minister to describe this protocol in a little bit more detail, and also explain if it is sort of being piloted with those children or youth that are involved with gangs, and it is going to be expanded to be used with a wider number of children and youth, or, if because it was recommended, I believe, from the street gang working group it is going to simply end there and be limited to that few number of young people involved with the "system."
Mrs. Mitchelson: You are right. It is one of the areas that the Children and Youth Secretariat should be working on, and that is interdepartmental co-operation, sharing of information so we can best deliver the services and make sure that what one department is doing through way of programming is not contrary to what another department or programming is doing.
So there are protocols that are being worked on, and there are all kinds of them. One is on personnel screening for abuse in criminal records and schools. I think I mentioned that. The development of a placement protocol for foster children to transition them into schools, the development of a street gang protocol, development of transition into school protocol for special needs children.
Can I indicate that there are all kinds of information-sharing protocols that need to be developed to provide the best service for children. I guess, because street gangs seem to be sort of a narrow focus, we could develop it. It seemed to be the one area where all the players agreed we need to have a co-ordinated approach, and they all want to be a part of sharing information so we can get to the bottom of the issue of gangs and try to find some positive intervention. It was an area where there was unanimous agreement, and we could get everyone together around the table to develop those protocols, that we will develop them and learn from that experience and possibly be able to get into some of the more complex areas where protocols need to be developed. So that one is underway. We have full co-operation from everyone, and I think we will be able to develop something that will be very positive for intervention around street gangs.
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Ms. Cerilli: So this protocol would be used with all the government departments that could be involved with these young people, as well as community agencies throughout the province. Is it sort of using the model that has been implemented in Brandon for some time, the MAPP project? Is that the model where they have a computerized system and forms that are used by all of the agencies and departments and that can be accessed by the appropriate personnel and youth workers or teachers or counsellors so that, as the minister has said, they are all using the same procedures and they have access to the same information about these young people?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, I guess I was trying to get an update on what is happening in Brandon. It is similar to what is happening in Brandon. The kids in Brandon are preidentified as high risk, and it is one central co-ordination of the--it is the MAPP program.
In Winnipeg, it will be sort of community or by neighbourhood, because the demographics are much larger in the city of Winnipeg. It will not necessarily be predetermined high risk, but it might be those kids that are identified as belonging to a gang that may have not been involved in any significant criminal activity but that might be on the edge or on the verge of getting into that kind of activity.
Ms. Cerilli: I had asked a couple of other questions there, too, but just specifically: What is going to be the process for having young people included in this system so that they are a part of this protocol?
Mrs. Mitchelson: The MAPP in Brandon is a program that has already identified kids that are high risk and involved in activity, and it is a case-planning model. What we are doing here is a protocol which is sharing of information between the City of Winnipeg Police and other departments or agencies that are dealing with these same children so that the sharing of information is part of the protocol. It is not really a case plan.
Ms. Cerilli: I understand that. My question was: Then how do young people become part of that system to have their information shared? That is my question.
Mrs. Mitchelson: This is a nationally accepted standard that we are implementing that is accepted by all police departments right across the country, and if in fact there is some identification of criminal activity or high risk or association, that name can be identified and put on a list to share with other agencies, organizations or caregivers.
Ms. Cerilli: I am still not clear on--is it the police that keep the list then, and how do other agencies access that list? Is it schools, child care workers, you know, social workers with CFS? The focal point then is the police, and then other agencies have to access the information through the police. Is that correct?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Yes, the police service will compile the list, and the protocol that is being developed will in fact determine how those other agencies and organizations and departments can access the list. That is what the protocol is all about.
Ms. Cerilli: I understand. Moving on then. One of the other things that I am pleased to see is that, finally, as of today I guess, the government has announced that they are going to follow through with a long-time promise to implement this child and youth care worker diploma program at Red River. I just want to ask one question about this, and that is: How many people will be able to enroll in this program per year?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, it is 25 full-time equivalent positions. Not everyone may be full time. There will be a distance education component, but it is 25 full-time equivalent spaces.
Ms. Cerilli: Back to the issues of the protocols that we were just discussing, I am wondering, similarly as with the gang protocol, the one that is--let me see here--standardizing the protocol to review and screen personnel in schools. Again, is this a process that is going to sort of be developed for school personnel, and then it will be expanded to include other staff or people in the community who work with youth, whether it is in recreation, Justice, health care agencies? I would be interested, especially after we have heard all the concerns this past year about coaches in a variety of sports. Is this something that is going to be then able to be adapted to be used in other settings besides just the school system?
Mrs. Mitchelson: I understand that in some schools there is a process, and in other schools there is not. This will try to standardize that process right throughout our school system.
Around the issue of coaches, the Manitoba coaches' association have already approached the Children and Youth Secretariat and want to work with them to look at development of some process or protocol.
Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): I thank my colleague from Radisson. I have been following the debate on television downstairs, and I just asked if I could get in here to ask a couple of questions with regard to the protocol before you go on in regard to information sharing with the police. I just want to see if I understand it correctly. If, for example, a worker at Marymound has a runaway come back after three or four days, that worker now will be able to phone the police and find out if that person has gang connections, Is that how the protocol is going to be working?
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Mrs. Mitchelson: I hope I have gotten the question right. If I do not answer, we can follow up. If, in fact, in the scenario that my honourable friend put forward, that child came back to Marymound and showed some evidence that they might have been involved, while they were out of Marymound, in some gang activity, then they would consider calling the police and having that child put on, checked out to see if they were on the list. But they would have to have some clear evidence or suspicion--you know, if they came back with drugs, colours or that kind of thing.
Mr. Kowalski: My experience is more on the informal level, and I know the exchange of information is probably, on the formal level, a lot more practical and works a lot better than in the informal process, and what I am hearing from the minister is the worker cannot just arbitrarily check every kid to find out if there are gang connections, but if there is a cause, they can check it out because that would make a difference on how that worker counsels that child, and I understand that.
What other information in this protocol, other than that they are on that registry that the police have of 1,300 gang members and there is a strict criteria to be placed on that list, what other information can the worker at Marymound or a teacher, anyone else, get from the police under this proposed protocol?
Mrs. Mitchelson: I guess that is one of the reasons this has not been finalized yet for implementation, because some of those questions have not been answered. We want to ensure that there is no invasion of privacy, provisions as a result--so that is why--I suppose it would be very easy if we did not need to worry about protection of anyone and their privacy, and that is probably what makes it so very complicated.
Mr. Kowalski: The other question is, sounds like this information flow is going one way, that the worker is phoning the police, but what benefit can there be for the police? For example, a teacher notices that a child is not performing well in school, that all of a sudden has got a new set of friends and that. Will there be information going the other way under this protocol to the police to do some preventative, proactive policing to those kids at risk that are in danger of getting involved with gangs?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Yes, absolutely, that will be part of the process. I guess we want to make sure though, through the protocol, that the right information is going forward and that we are not just out on a fishing expedition.
Mr. Kowalski: Thank you very much for the answers to those questions. I will be listening to this debate intently. I have many more questions, but I think my colleague from Radisson has many more questions also, so I think I will allow her to proceed.
Ms. Cerilli: I appreciate the member for The Maples asking those questions. I think we can go into a lot of detail in a lot of these areas, and I know my colleagues in a variety of other departments will have a number of questions.
So one of the things I wanted to clarify then--I know in past years when we have gone through these Estimates, sometimes the minister who has the lead responsibility for the Youth Secretariat says ask the Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews) or ask the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh). If my colleague the member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh) has some similar questions in the Ministry of Justice Estimates, will the Minister of Justice be able to answer the questions about the protocol and provide him with information? He will have a lot of the same information about the Youth Secretariat side of things. The minister is nodding yes.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Yes, and he will probably be able to give more detail than I can. I am the lead minister and sort of responsible for taking the lead on ensuring that things get moving forward for approval and projects get undertaken, and that kind of thing. I will not have great detail on the Department of Education or the Department of Justice, but I think accountability for co-ordination and looking at initiatives that are happening interdepartmentally I can try to speak to as much as possible.
Ms. Cerilli: I know one of the concerns that people have in this area, since we were just discussing the issue of privacy and confidentiality with respect to sharing information about young people between different agencies and departments--it has to do with the whole area of young people particularly performing, so to speak, up to the level of their expectations. There would be the concern, particularly in the school setting, that a number of teachers or staff, personnel would have access to information about young people that may affect their expectations of that young person in terms of their ability to academically succeed, and that type of thing. I see that some of the staff are nodding.
I am wondering, specifically, what is going to be there to protect young people from that occurring, whether it is in the education side of things or any of the other agencies that have access to information. What is specifically there to protect the confidentiality of the young people and their families?
Mrs. Mitchelson: We did indicate that the protocol had not been finalized, the one on the gang protocol. I do want to indicate that it is on a need-to-know basis. We cannot have fishing trips or expeditions going on, you know, people requesting information without any just cause for requesting that information, and I think that has to be part of the protocol. It has to be the understanding. We cannot have information being shared when it is not necessary or important to share that for the best interests of the child and their education or their protection or whatever. So, I mean, that is part of the final process, to ensure that privacy is protected, but on a need-to-know basis for better care or support of a child in the school system or any other system. Some things are important to know, and some information is important to have.
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Ms. Cerilli: But, if I am understanding it correctly, there will be a lot of information on their health, perhaps health information with respect to--particularly mental health, abuse histories, some of that kind of information that could be through Child and Family Services that would be accessible through this network or system.
Mrs. Mitchelson: The health issues are not a part of what we are talking about in any of these protocols at this point in time.
Ms. Cerilli: I notice that the Department of Housing is now involved with Children and Youth Secretariat. It has been added, as well as Urban Affairs, as of January. Yet in this budget there was a 20 percent reduction in the Shelter Allowance for Family Renters program which was singled out or specified in a recommendation put forward by the early childhood working group which recommended to promote that program so more low-income families would benefit from it. The minister probably knows, as did the members of the working group on that committee for early childhood education, that the uptake of the Shelter Allowance for Family Renters program has not been to the maximum dollars allocated for the last couple of years, that in the last couple of years there has been approximately $300,000 unused in terms of grants in the budget for that program in the Department of Housing.
It seems like a good idea to have the strategy to promote that program so that families with children can save, on average, $125 a month on their rent costs and then put that money into food, into clothes and other essentials, as well as perhaps even some of the other things that kids need in terms of recreation and other activities. So I am curious that, you know, here you are adding this department, and it makes sense, recognizing that housing is so important as an essential basic for quality of life and health for families. I have not yet really had an explanation of why this program recommendation through the early childhood working group was not included in your strategy. On the other hand, that dollar amount has been eliminated from the SAFER program.
Mrs. Mitchelson: I know I was in the Estimates of my honourable colleague the Minister of Housing (Mr. Reimer), and I believe he tried to explain this several times to my honourable friend across the way. It is a program that is there and as people apply for it, if they are eligible, they get the support. It is one program, I suppose, in a list of many interventions that need to be undertaken for those low-income families that are going to need support.
There are other initiatives that we are looking at as far as children are concerned that will co-ordinate our services and our support. So it is one thing; it is a program that is there and available in the Department of Housing. If there was more uptake, there would be more money in the program. Because there is not the uptake, there is not money allocated in the budget. If in fact that budget was overexpended, I know that there are means to go back for extra support, for more money for the program.
So, you know, it is there. I have heard the Minister of Housing explain, and it is one of many programs and initiatives that will be available for children and families that will need support because of low income.
Ms. Cerilli: Well, this minister has given me a little bit more information by suggesting that if the existing budget in that program, which is now $250,000 less than last year in the Estimates book, is used that there will be more money available for families in that program. But she is not really dealing with the issue, which is that her working group did not suggest to put more money into this program. Her working group suggested promoting the program, because I suspect they knew full well that the uptake of the program was not there, and that it is a program which does exactly what we need to have happen to provide rent supplement and housing support for quality housing for low-income families, which has so many benefits.
I will not go into it in detail, but I want the minister to explain to me, you know, why that recommendation to promote the program, to have a strategy to promote that program so the uptake is improved was not followed?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, again, I will go back to my honourable friend and say that those were recommendations that were made to the working group. They compiled information that would look at intersectoral strategies to provide better support for children and families, and our priority areas have been outlined in our strategic documents. We will work on those aggressively, intersectorally, and many of the approaches and interventions that we will be taking will improve the status and the lives of children in families throughout Manitoba. Many of those will be families that are living in poverty.
So it was a recommendation made by the working group to the secretariat. Out of the secretariat came the intersectoral initiatives that would benefit families, and I make no apologies for the priority areas that we have chosen, as the Children and Youth Secretariat, to move forward on.
Ms. Cerilli: Well, I thank the minister for that answer. I will move on to my next question.
The Northern Summer Youth Program, which is going to receive funding through the Aboriginal Justice Initiative Fund, to provide summer recreation for children and youth aged four to 20 in isolated northern aboriginal communities, is this the replacement for the Fly-In Sports Camp program that the member for Riel (Mr. Newman) likes to talk about? Can the minister tell me: What is the dollar amount allocated for that program this year?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Yes, Mr. Chairperson, it is the replacement for that program, the Northern Fly-In Sports program, that the Minister of Northern and Native Affairs (Mr. Newman) has talked about, and I believe the allocation is $100,000.
Ms. Cerilli: I am wondering if the minister knows if the program is going to operate the same way, to train aboriginal people in the North to be recreation leaders, and bring all sorts of equipment and supplies in for the summer to train young people to be recreation leaders in their community. Then, if she can also tell me how many communities will be benefiting from this program this summer.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Can I indicate, Mr. Chairperson, that the intent of the program is the same, but I would undertake to get information from my colleague the Minister of Northern and Native Affairs about the detail, and bring that information back the next time we sit for Estimates.
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Ms. Cerilli: One of the other things that we had started discussing related to the Youth Secretariat was in Interim Supply and had to do with the nutrition programs for children and their families that were highlighted also in the budget speech. I know that the minister had said there was $300,000 for these programs. Again, I am wanting to have the minister indicate the number of children, or families that she anticipates this is going to provide nutritional support for.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, there is a budget allocation in the Department of Family Services, but I want to indicate that we are presently working with the Inner City Review Committee around this specific issue. There have been meetings with the Winnipeg Foundation, the United Way, federal officials and civic officials that have been meeting to look at--they have done an inventory of what nutrition programs are available in certain neighbourhoods and communities and have determined as a group of funders that there needs to be more co-ordination of that kind of service, and we are presently working towards seeing where we can best utilize the dollars in conjunction.
One of the criticisms from other funders has always been that sometimes levels of government go off on their own and fund and start new programs without looking to what is already there. We also need to be looking to see whether we can co-ordinate the kind of activity that is happening in neighbourhoods and communities in a better fashion.
So we are working pretty aggressively to try to determine what needs to happen where and in what neighbourhoods. I cannot give an exact number of children who might be helped or supported as yet through that program, but I want my honourable friend to know that there is a major commitment by all of the funders to ensure that whatever we are doing is meeting a need and not duplicating something else that is going on out there. So it is not a very straightforward answer, but we are not at a point yet where we can announce a program in any one specific neighbourhood because we are all working at it together.
Ms. Cerilli: Well, I wonder if the secretariat has done an inventory then of the agencies that are currently involved in nutrition supplement programs, including schools, and if this money is going to be available to schools, because I know the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) has made some comments suggesting that this type of program is not a responsibility in Education; so if this $300,000 is to be used by community agencies, if there has been an inventory of those types of agencies throughout the province--if this is not just a Winnipeg initiative but throughout the province--and if it is also to involve schools.
Mrs. Mitchelson: I am going to say that I certainly agree with my colleague the Minister of Education when we talk about--I guess the issue for me is not to say that children do not learn better and should not be nourished and well fed before they go to school. If there needs to be that kind of support, I believe it has to be there. We all need to work together to ensure that it is.
I think my feelings are probably the same as the Minister of Education's. We should not be spending Education dollars, dollars that are there for education, to provide that kind of support if there is a need for it. We might want to use the school facility to deliver those kinds of programs, or other community facilities, because our ultimate goal should be to ensure that children do not go to school hungry.
The best place to provide that kind of programming might be the school facility, but it should not be Education dollars that are used to provide that support. What we are looking at is a comprehensive plan to ensure--and we might have to look at different ways of delivering that in the school building, but our main goal or objective should be to ensure that school dollars, Education dollars, are not being used to deliver those programs. So we will be working with communities.
I mentioned that the Canadian Living Foundation has been speaking to us, and they are doing projects right across Canada. We have talked to them, and they have been meeting with other funders and business partners within the community, our Manitoba community, to look at how we can partner together. They do have some seed money that they can provide for co-ordination of services, and we are working with them to see whether there are identified communities throughout Manitoba that could benefit from nutrition programs.
So there is activity ongoing, and as we are ready to announce what communities, what neighbourhoods, what specific projects are needed, we will announce those.
Ms. Cerilli: The minister, I guess by implication, may have answered my question which was, then, are schools--school divisions, we know, are already putting some funds into this area, and she said that schools may be a site, but what I am wondering then is if this money is to deal with the schools need for programs, this money then could go to schools and we could have programs delivered in schools through these funds. It could then, I am understanding, be delivered by school divisions or by other community agencies. So I want her to confirm that.
The other part of my question is if her secretariat has done an inventory of these agencies, and if I could get a copy of that to see what kinds of agencies in our province are trying to meet this need to ensure that kids do not wake up and go to school hungry. I am also interested in finding out the amount of money that the Canadian Living Foundation would be able to contribute to this type of project.
Mrs. Mitchelson: The Canadian Living Foundation has about $25,000 in seed money for the city of Winnipeg and about $15,000 for outside the city of Winnipeg, and we are presently working with them. What they want us to do is to ensure that whatever is delivered in Manitoba is co-ordinated and that is why we are working with the other funders. They have been meeting with the United Way and other business partners to try to ensure that the seed money is used for the co-ordination and the implementation of something that is identified as a gap in service.
So it is in the initial stages. We have met a couple of times with them, and the seed money will be available if we can get things together and identify which communities, which neighbourhoods might need support and what that kind of support might be. As I said, it is only seed money. It would have to be augmented with money from other funders, from levels of government to provide nutrition programs.
I go back to the question my honourable friend asked about giving money to schools or school divisions to do nutrition programs, and I go back again to saying that I do not believe it is an education responsibility. It might deliver programs in schools in some instances if that is the right need in that neighbourhood, but I believe that the community has to be involved, not the school division, in delivering the program, a community delivered program possibly in the school facility.
I am very strongly committed to ensuring that community is involved in that in some way, because I do not believe it should be the function of a school board to have to determine the nutritional needs. School boards should be there to ensure that policy is there to educate our children. If there are additional supports that children need in order to be educated, I believe that is a community responsibility, and I think we need to look at how we deliver those kinds of programs.
I honestly believe that our school buildings need to be used in a much more significant way for community use. You look at a hospital facility that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and is meeting the needs of many Manitobans. You look at many school facilities, which we pay the same capital costs to construct, and they are open nine to five, Monday to Friday, 10 months of the year, and we need to creatively think how we can better make community use of our schools.
Ms. Cerilli: Well, the minister has made that point a number of times now, but she is not really answering my question. My question is the agencies that are already delivering some programs, and I would think already some community-based agencies, nonprofit groups, parent co-ordinated groups are running programs like this in schools. What I am wondering is: The existing programs, are they going to be eligible to apply or to be funded through this $300,000? The minister keeps emphasizing they do not want have duplication of services so that is why I keep asking about doing an inventory. I am interested in knowing if you know already which agencies are doing this kind of programming, and I am interested in getting that kind of information from the minister so we could see how this $300,000 is going to be utilized.
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Mrs. Mitchelson: Yes, indeed, in some neighbourhoods in some communities there will be community-based delivery programs right now that are working really well. In other communities they may need to be developed. I guess what I am saying is we have been working agressively with the other funders, and we have an allocation within my department of $300,000, but we are not going to put those dollars towards bricks and mortar. We are identifying where the gaps are in the system, and we will then deliver appropriate programs wherever they are needed based on hungry kids.
Ms. Cerilli: We always get suspicious when they resort to rhetoric. I guess I do anyway, because you are not answering my question. I do not want to spend too much more time on this, but the United Way and the Winnipeg Foundation are listed as a couple of funders that you are working with. But those are not the agencies that are directly delivering these programs. What I am wanting is to know if the existing programs, if you know who they are, who the agencies that are running them, and if they are going to be eligible to receive some of this $300,000?
Mrs. Mitchelson: I will try again. We have been working aggressively with other funders. We have been talking around the issue of nutrition, nutrition for children, those that go to school hungry, those that need support. The United Way funds many organizations that deliver those kinds of programs; the Winnipeg Foundation does. We do not have a list within the Children and Youth Secretariat. What we are doing is working with the other funders, federal government, civic government, United Way, the Winnipeg Foundation. Through the Inner City Review Committee, they are gathering data and information on what is out there right now.
We have to also recognize that there are certain community organizations that do some of these kinds of activities that are not funded by anyone. They are doing it as a result of community fundraising activities. So not only do we need the inventory of what we fund, but we also need the informal programs that are happening presently and they might be in church basements. They might be able to enhance their programs with a little bit of additional support.
I think we need to look at that, but it will not be a broad application process that sort of asks everyone to come and apply for money. I think we need to identify, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, where the needs are, and then see how we can augment those needs. We are not going to do it as a provincial government in isolation in ensuring that the other funders are not supportive and possibly our $300,000 could become significantly more if the United Way, the Winnipeg Foundation bought into and supported or matched our provincial dollars.
So we are working on it. It is an announcement that was made and this year we will be talking about how that money will be spent. [interjection]
Ms. Cerilli: The member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) is just saying the list of the inventory of all the agencies and schools that are providing these programs should be easy to get, and I would think that--[interjection] I did not say just schools, agencies and schools that are providing these programs should be easy to get.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): Order, please. The member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) has been recognized for a question.
Ms. Cerilli: I was just saying that this list should be easy to get. I think it would be very useful, especially if what they are trying to do is co-ordinate all these agencies and ensure that they are working together like she said. My last question on this area is: Does she have a total dollar figure for funds available in this area of nutrition for kids from all the different agencies that are funding, the United Way, Winnipeg Foundation and the other ones that she has mentioned, and could she tell us how much is going to be available that could be co-ordinated through this process that she is undertaking through the secretariat?
Mrs. Mitchelson: No, I cannot. I can indicate to you that we all want to ensure that, as we move into new programming, we are not setting something up that is competing with something else that is ongoing.
We will be looking at needs community by community. We may be looking at targeting a couple of very significant high-need communities in our inner city of Winnipeg through that process, and it might be around a school catchment area. We are looking at that right now, and we will have to be determining what communities we might go into, and then also outside the city of Winnipeg what the answer might be.
Ms. Cerilli: Does the minister have information on another program which was in her opening statement? That is the Urban Sports Camp Program. This is a program that is mentioned a lot, and in her opening statement the minister has mentioned a number of groups that have--it looks like they have actually received money to run urban sports camp programs.
I am not sure if that is what is mentioned here, but the Rotary Club, United Way, Boys and Girls Clubs, Rossbrook House, Andrew Street, Teen Jeunesse and the Winnipeg Native Alliance. I want to find out the amount of money that has been allocated to each of those agencies if it indeed has been for an urban sports camp program.
Mrs. Mitchelson: The Rotary Club does not receive funding from government. The Rotary Club would generate and raise funds in the communities to support government activity. The Rotary Club, though, is involved as a service organization, as is the Boys and Girls Club, in trying to co-ordinate activities.
I think as a result of government and these community organizations getting together, they have determined that the model that the Native Alliance group has put forward is a good model for an urban sports camp concept, and so they are now being funded to develop the program that might have outreach or satellite offices at Rossbrook House and other locations in the city. I guess it has been determined by that group collectively.
There is some $900,000 available. Native Alliance has been funded in order to co-ordinate that activity and to help identify locations to set up recreational programming.
Ms. Cerilli: So how much of that $900,000 is going to be available for Native Alliance to co-ordinate programs then, as I am understanding it, at other satellite or agencies in Winnipeg?
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Mrs. Mitchelson: I would ask my honourable friend if maybe her colleague from St. Johns could note asking this question of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews) in his Estimates to get the real detail.
All I know is that the Native Alliance, and I think it was announced just recently--I mean I could try to get the detail on it, but has been given developmental money in order to co-ordinate these activities, help identify locations to deliver the programming, and the money will then flow to service delivery people in order to deliver the programs. There has been an amount of money given to Native Alliance to start this process.
Ms. Cerilli: I am pleased to see the Native Alliance is involved in this. I have met with them, and I know that the minister has received letters from me recommending that they support this organization, but then are they also going to receive funds to operate their program that is ongoing, particularly because it does try and help kids who are street involved have an alternative and a safe place to go to get off the street?
Then, besides answering that question, if the minister can clarify from her opening statement if there are also additional monies, other than what is going to the Native Alliance, that are going to go to the Winnipeg Boys and Girls Clubs, Rossbrook House, Andrews Street, and Teen Stop Jeunesse for additional urban sports camps projects, or if those are some of the sites that the Native Alliance is expected to offer their programs through.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Those are going to be the sites that Native Alliance is going to co-ordinate their activities through, and the answer to the first question is: yes, there will be ongoing support for Native Alliance to do their programming, and they will help to co-ordinate the programming that is going on at all of those different sites.
Ms. Cerilli: I appreciate the minister has not got the specific dollar figure right now for the amount for Native Alliance, but I am wondering if part of that money is to go and pay for staff or recreation leaders or sports camp leaders who can work out of these centres, because what we often find in this whole area is a reliance on volunteers, and it has not been feasible in a lot of areas. I know that this is one of the problems the Native Alliance has had. They wanted to be able to have someone full time who could work, provide continuity and develop programs. That is a need for organizations like are listed in your opening statement, is that they get support for personnel.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Absolutely, there will be support for staff, and ongoing support for staffing. I too have met with Native Alliance, and I really think that they offer a real option and an alternative for children that have been involved in maybe non-productive activities and try to focus them and redirect them I think. Some of the peer influence and the programming that is available is the right approach. I recognize and realize also that there needs to be ongoing support for staffing that can assure these programs are successful.
Ms. Cerilli: One of the other things the minister mentioned in her opening statement was a statistic I think that would shock a lot of people, that you collected data through the secretariat on 50 youth identified by each department as having the highest need, a total of 198 in all, and from the analysis you learned that you spent $1.4 million per day or $1,000 per minute on this relatively small group of children and youth. I am wondering if that also included the staff that work with those young people through government and other agencies, if you can tell us how many staff are involved in that figure of $1.4 million per day, and how you figured out salary, hours, that type of thing. Of course, if it is including staff, they probably work with many young people in one day or many families in one day. So I am just wanting to understand the statistic better.
Mrs. Mitchelson: It is pretty hard to give a specific answer. What I have to indicate is that this was a compilation of 15 of, I guess, the highest-needs kids in each of the four departments, and it looked at the total cost.
So there would have been staff support; there would have been hospitalization in some instances; there would have been respite; there would have been therapy; there would have been treatment, and it would be the compilation of absolutely every intervention that they had had.
So it would have included staff costs. It would have included hospitalization, medication, respite, other support and other interventions, the total cost.
Ms. Cerilli: Does the minister then have a more detailed breakdown of the figures that make up that statistic?
Mrs. Mitchelson: We do not have it here, but I can get that information.
Ms. Cerilli: I guess more broadly then, I know that this is the approach that other jurisdictions have taken, where they have identified the high risk but also the high-use, highly serviced clients, youth and their families, and then have tried to figure out how to better co-ordinate the services that are being used by those families and children.
I am wondering if that is what is going to happen with this analysis and the work that is being done to compile this information.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, what we have tried to learn from the compilation of the activity is what the trends are, where individuals are at today; is there sort of a common thread or theme; can we better provide service, and we will be looking at better co-ordination to make sure that our dollars are being utilized to the best of our ability right across the four different departments. So the whole exercise was done in order to determine how much we were spending, how we were using those dollars and whether there could be a better approach.
I suppose for those who would have been involved with the Child and Family Services agency where the children were moved from one placement to another to another, was there additional cost incurred as a result of those moves and reorientation, or would there be a better way of trying to deliver that service?
Ms. Cerilli: So are you planning on producing a report on this to include the trends, to include any problems that you identify, to include any recommendations or plans that may flow from that, if this is included in the statistics that I know the minister has tabled in these documents that I have, A Statement of Government Policy on Youth, and Strategy Considerations?
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Mrs. Mitchelson: I guess what we have learned from compiling the information together is that possibly if we move to doing things differently a lot earlier in children's lives, we might have a much more positive impact on the end result and a reduction in the costs later on in the system. So there are a lot of the issues and a lot of the initiatives around early intervention, around co-ordination. I guess some of the things we are looking at, through the closure of Seven Oaks and better utilization of our resources in a significant way earlier on and a more co-ordinated approach using the mental health system, psychiatric beds, mobile crisis units, to deal with problems up front, could hopefully save us from the kind of warehousing that has been happening at Seven Oaks that is very costly and really is not good treatment.
So a lot of the things that we have learned from compiling that information, the trends where people have come into the system, how they stay in and where they end up, you know, after they move into their adult life, can give us some indication on how we can better treat them, better deliver services earlier on.
Ms. Cerilli: Just to clarify then from the minister's answer. I appreciate what she said, but is she--I saw when she was answering the question she was looking at the document, Strategic Considerations for Developing Services for Children and Youth. Am I to understand that that has the information or report on the analysis that was done on these 50 high-risk youth and high-service youth from each of these four departments?
Mrs. Mitchelson: The secretariat used the information that they gathered to develop a strategy that you will find in the document in front of you. That is only one small--they did not develop a report on it. They used the analysis in order to develop strategies and interventions that would better serve children.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): At the request of the Chair, would there be a willingness to take a five-minute break? The committee will break for five minutes.
The committee recessed at 5:03 p.m.
The committee resumed at 5:14 p.m.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): Okay, we are back at it.
Ms. Cerilli: One of the comments the minister made in her opening statement was that there is very little research on Canadian models in dealing with the best methods or practices for providing services to children and families. I am wondering, based on that, if there are some plans through the Youth Secretariat to address this through funding research in areas that they decide there is a need. It sounds like some of that is going on by the discussion we just had about the identification of the high-risk youth service by the various departments. I have with me one program from the University of Victoria school of child and youth care, and its integration of services to youth at risk in their communities. It is, I guess, an example of a model that is being used in one part of our country. I am curious to see if the minister is now going to put some priority on developing research in this area.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, absolutely. There is not any project that will be undertaken through a co-ordination of the Child and Youth Secretariat that will not have a research component to it. Even the Baby Think it Over program, which is starting up in the schools, will have a research component.
We will want to measure how successful the program is in helping kids understand that pregnancy is not their way out of poverty and the ideal life as an adolescent, that it really does provide many disincentives--there are a lot of drawbacks--and that it is not easy when you have the additional responsibility of looking after an infant to turn your life around into a very positive, proactive, independent life, that there are many more barriers to access to education, a lot more issues to think about in balancing the life of motherhood, work and all of the other activities that will have to be undertaken throughout the rest of their life are much more difficult when they have the addition of another person to look after and to think about and to do that, in may instances, alone. So we certainly are going to ensure that there is a research component.
I guess part of the problem right across Canada has been in the years when money was flowing and government departments were experiencing increases year after year, and I can remember those days. You know, there would be allocations in the Department of Health of a 10 percent additional increase or budget year over year, as there were within all government departments. Departments were busy trying to develop new programs and ways to spend that money without looking at the old programs and seeing whether they were meeting the needs of the day. So new programs were implemented on top of old programs without any measurement, without any data collection, without any research, and we are not unique here in Manitoba. It happened right across the country and, as a result, we do not have the benchmarks or the data that indicates to us where we have succeeded and where we have not.
It is going to be very critical into the future that we start to measure, get that benchmark and that data collected to see whether we really are having a positive impact on the lives of the people that we support through our government programs. Not only do we need to be developing those benchmarks and ensuring that our programs with our scarcer resources today are doing the right things, but we need to ensure that all those other levels of government and other funders are working together with us to develop those benchmarks and that, you know, from time to time we evaluate and have the courage to say, no longer is a program working or is it meeting the needs of our community today. Let us look at changing the way we do things and serving people better.
Ms. Cerilli: One of the other comments that you made just more recently as well when you were talking about the study that was done on the 50 youth identified by each department was what you learned from that was early intervention is key. I am wondering if, then, you have looked at how this is going to affect the more broad policy areas in government such as child care, such as pregnancy prevention, such as--you know, we have talked a little bit about some of these, about the nutrition program. I am trying to think of some of the other more broad areas that would--you know, child abuse, support for families with small children who are identified as at risk for child abuse.
Can we expect to see some major funding allocation changes or program changes in areas like that in dealing with child abuse and dealing with child care, particularly?
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Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, I think absolutely we can see new ways of thinking about delivering services, and that is exactly one of the reasons why we have looked to the community to add to the expertise in the secretariat, some profile people who have done some really good work in our communities. I just look to Dorothy Dudek who has agreed to move into the secretariat for a year and work with the secretariat around new vision and new direction. It is very critical that we look at the resources that need to go into early intervention for children who are living in poverty, are disadvantaged, to get them off to a better start to life.
We need to look at the kinds of skills people need to deliver those programs. I have a lot of confidence in the training and the skills of those who work in early childhood education in our child care centres, and some of the expertise that they have in being very valuable resources and helping us look at how we deliver new programming or enhanced programming to children early on in life. So, therefore, I think Dorothy will be a very valuable asset to us as we look at those programs.
We have had a fact-finding mission ongoing for a year on the whole child care system. We do know that, predominantly, most--90, 95 percent--of single-parent families are women. As they move into the workforce, we are going to need accommodation for child care, but we do know that the needs are changing. As jobs become more nontraditional or shift-work jobs, there is going to need to be a change in focus around how we provide that child care to the working woman who might be working the midnight shift and need the kind of support that might not be able to be provided in a centre, or that might not be the ideal way of providing service. We need to look at new approaches and new flexibility within our child care system. I think that the augmentation or the implementation of new early intervention programs need to be looked at not only in the context of how we in our government departments co-ordinate our programming but how the community fits into that programming with us. We need the combination of both. We need neighbourhood and community assessment of what the needs are and then we need to find the right people to deliver the programs.
There are many out there that I have talked to that have great ideas, and I know that Dorothy Dudek is one person that has a good connection into the community, and one that will be able to assist us. I believe in a very positive way in identifying who can best deliver the programs, what kinds of programs need to be delivered and how we can co-ordinate that activity. So we are reaching out beyond the bureaucracy within government and saying, how do we partner in a more positive way with community, who are the leaders we can identify in the community, in the education system, in the health system, in the family services system that might want to come into the secretariat? Just as we rotate people from departments from time to time into the secretariat, how can we rotate people from the community to come in and work with us to see whether we cannot find the very best solutions for our families and children out there?
Ms. Cerilli: The minister keeps talking a lot about partnering with community groups. One of the things that she also recognized in her opening statement was the outstanding example of the direction that you want to go with the Andrews Street Family Centre. I am wondering if the minister could clarify for me what she sees as making this centre so good or successful. Specifically, what is it?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, I guess I could go on and on about Andrews Street. I will try to keep my remarks as brief as possible, but I think there is a lot of activity ongoing that merits consideration as a model that could be adapted to different neighbourhoods and different communities. When Andrews Street Family Centre started up, before they even opened their doors they went door to door in the community. There was a group of individuals, Josie Hill was one, I think the person that was hired to co-ordinate and get the project off the ground. They went door to door in the community and assessed community needs and as a result of that developed a program and found a space that met their needs and opened it.
They developed several programs. What they have that is really great, I think, is a real good connection to William Whyte School, which is right across the street from them, so the school and the community are working together. I know they have programming and they also have Pritchard Place Drop-in Centre which is adjacent to Andrews Street Family Centre, so they have ongoing activities at Pritchard Place that they have developed and that are growing, but they have programs that are connected to the school too, so not only do they have after-school programs and activities for kids at Pritchard Place but they have the school gymnasium four evenings a week where they can develop programming and provide programming and they have young individuals that organize and co-ordinate that programming. They have a community kitchen where--
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): The honourable member for Radisson, on a point of order.
Ms. Cerilli: Just to clarify for the minister. I am really quite familiar with the Andrews Street Family Centre and the programs they offer. I am not interested in your describing the programs. I am interested in your telling me what you believe is really positive about them or why it is that this model is something you are interested in. You said that it is the model, so that is the kind of thing I am wanting you to describe, maybe mentioning a specific project that they are undertaking but to highlight in terms of your function as the Youth Secretariat why you think it works, why what they are doing is going to work.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): The honourable member does not have a point of order, but I will ask the minister to respond to the question.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Thanks, Mr. Chairperson. I appreciate your ruling, but I guess when my honourable friend wants to know what I think is positive and what is working and why it is working, it is all of the programming. It is the co-ordination with the school that is very positive. It is the community kitchen that not only teaches parents how to cook nutritional meals, but it provides them with the opportunity to take those nutritional meals home to feed their families. It has a store there that allows them to buy diapers one at a time or a bit of laundry soap in an individual package for 18 cents that allows them to do their laundry. It has a washer and a dryer that allows people when they are coming in for programming or classes to throw a load of wash in. It is practical, hands-on application. It teaches them how to budget.
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They have also developed a small business whereby now they do catering. We have used their catering services from time to time. I have for different meetings and activities. So they are able to generate some revenue to put back into their community. It is the moms-helping-moms program where they have mentors for mothers that need support in the community. It is the development of job opportunities for people in the community, and most of the people that are working at Andrews Street Family Centre started off possibly on welfare as single parents, many aboriginal, who have developed their skills and been hired to work, now having a job in the community, feeling some pride and taking some ownership over their community and over their family activities.
So I just really think that the concept is great. It deals with many aspects of a family's life, and I think that model, although it might not be perfect for every neighbourhood, is one that can certainly be adapted in many other neighbourhoods throughout the city. I mean, they have connection to business, and they are able to get donations or day-old meat or whatever at a reduced price. They have got such a network and such a partnership within the community, but along with that they have the ability to learn to develop their skills around how to provide for themselves, their families, and develop a support network which can only help and benefit their families and their community. And they have got all kinds of programming that is ongoing.
I think the best part about Andrews Street Family Centre is again the number of community people that are actually working and many community people that volunteer their time. I think out of the staff at Andrews Street only four are professional staff. The vast majority of the staff at Andrews Street are community people that have grown and learned, maybe started off volunteering and have ended up with job opportunities.
I think that that is the kind of thing. It is community taking ownership, people taking ownership and actually working and supporting others in their community that very desperately need support. I think the most positive things are the community developing and growing; having employment opportunities right in their own neighbourhoods; understanding their neighbourhoods; who is there, who needs help, who they want to bring in; the whole safety issue of course for children before and after school; and the recreational opportunities and activities that are positive activities that are available to those children.
They also do provide a nutrition program after school. They say the first thing that happens when the kids walk in the door is they get a nutritional snack, and the last thing that happens before they leave is they get something in their stomachs before they go home. There are so many good things about that kind of a concept that I am so supportive of and I think need to be shared. I have often asked whether they could not look at developing satellites of Andrews Street in other neighbourhoods. I think that is a real possibility.
Ms. Cerilli: I want to pick up on that and continue talking about this as a model, because I think one of the things you emphasized then in your last statement is that they are doing a real variety of things. It is not one agency that tries to meet one need and then another agency trying to meet another need. They try to interconnect a lot of different programs so that they are getting the best impact that they can.
Given everything that you have said, I am wondering what you see as government's role and the Youth Secretariat's role in dealing with agencies like that. If this is the kind of model that you think is working and you really think is great, what is government's role vis-a-vis these types of agencies and the kinds of services that they are providing, because they are meeting a lot of needs that are highlighted in the Youth Secretariat documents? So that is what I am interested in finding out.
Mrs. Mitchelson: I think government's role very much is a facilitator, a supporter. Of course, there is financial contribution by government to the activities that are ongoing. I guess it just goes to show you that--quite frankly, I think the start-up money came from the federal government for Andrews Street Family Centre and it was a federal grant, but as a result of the activities and the good things that are ongoing, we have come in with support at the provincial level also.
But, you know, government cannot take the place of a community that identifies its own need and then develops its programs uniquely for the individuals. They know better than I what meets the needs of their community. We want to be there to support, we want to be there to encourage, we want to be able to facilitate if there are connections and we want to be able to fund those kinds of programs and projects, but we do not want to dictate to a neighbourhood or a community what is best for them.
We believe if they can develop, from the community up, programs that meet the needs--you know, from the day they opened, or the first time I visited, to today, I see significant changes and positive changes because they just keep adding to as the needs arise, new programming, new activities. They can do that better than we can, but we are there to support, we are there to encourage and we are there to fund when those kinds of initiatives by a community really work.
Ms. Cerilli: I am trying to remember because I think that the Andrews Street Family Centre is one of the results of the William Whyte neighbourhood study which was a housing project that began as the north end housing project through William Whyte School, the William Whyte neighbourhood. I think that is how the study was actually done, is they went door to door and their first concern was about the number of--well, they had a number of concerns, but they were concerned about the number of boarded-up buildings and sniff houses and that in the neighbourhood. I think that a lot of the offshoots were a result of the study that was done by going door to door, related to that William Whyte neighbourhood study. I know that was the kind of study that was done through the north end housing project.
I am also wanting to see if the minister is aware that the types of projects being done through the Andrews Street Family Centre are also being done through many public housing development tenant associations and that there are staff in government through the tenant relations officers. They basically act as community development people that try and encourage and support the development of groups that are going to take on the kinds of initiatives that the Andrews Street Family Centre has--and if that is one of the ways that she sees either Housing or any other government department could help facilitate. She had said that she sees a role in government as trying to facilitate, because one of the things I have often thought is if we had fewer people, for example, on social allowance, that were doing policing work of people on social allowance and more people that were doing community development work in trying to start, like the work that is being done with the entrepreneurial catering business and the work that is being done again through the housing projects where they have developed a co-op to help renovate homes.
That is also the kind of community development work that could be facilitated. I see the minister doing a lot of nodding yes, so I am assuming she is agreeing and is aware that those kinds of projects are also available through other government departments, and I just want to say one more thing about that. If that is what she means by partnering--you know, a lot of the phrases that are used in your documents: partnering with community; having community-based programming--she can guarantee us that this is not going to mean that government no longer has a role, but that perhaps there is going to be more clarity in when government's role is to support and fund and to assure that some things can be done at the community-based level like that, but there are essential services and things that only government can do, that have to be done directly through government, or if this is something that the Youth Secretariat is looking at at all. This whole idea that there are certain delineations that have to be made between essential services through government departments and agencies, and then other things that can be better done through community-based, nonprofit or existing agencies in the community.
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Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, I was nodding in agreement. I think that I am probably more familiar with the Lord Selkirk housing complex than I am with this one in The Maples that is sort of--I cannot remember the name, but I know just in my discussions with members of the community from the Lord Selkirk area and CEDA, I have certainly gained a lot of insight into some of the things that are taking place and some of the community consultation around how they can make their neighbourhoods safer and better. I am very supportive of working very co-operatively around the issues that they have raised.
I want to just share with my honourable friend some of the comments that were made by the community in some of my consultations and that leads us to a lot of the direction we are taking. I know the word "partnership" has been used so long and sometimes so loosely in many different contexts that it is almost an outdated word and you need to find something else because "partnership" means very little or very much, depending on whether it is really a working relationship. So I sometimes have difficulty with that word only because it has been around so long that people do not seem to take it with any sense of any meaning any more.
The comments that were made to me when we had several community consultation processes around our Families First document asking the community what they thought of it and what they felt needed to happen, they talked about strengthening partnerships and that some community agencies are not aware of existing resources that other community agencies are providing, so we need an inventory of that kind of thing. I have come to realize that within the Child and Family Services system, there are certain agencies and certain organizations that are used on a regular basis as referral or support for families in need. I also know that the mental health system or the health system has another inventory of another group of service organizations or community agencies that they use, as do Education and Justice, and they might not even know what each other is doing.
So there is not any sort of common inventory of services that are available. We do know that we have over 400 agencies in the core area of Winnipeg that are providing support services in some fashion, and there certainly are not 400 different services that need to be provided, so there is some overlap and duplication. We can probably get on to some discussion around how we are trying to work on that, because not only is it what the provincial government funds, but other agencies fund organizations to sometimes do the same things that we fund organizations to do.
So we need to co-ordinate that, and there seems to be a sense by community people that sometimes they do not know what other agencies are doing. They made the comment that there needs to be a holistic approach to addressing community needs. The areas they talked about focusing on were family involvement, employment, housing, education, community services, volunteers and policing.
So, I mean, your comments that you make around housing and housing complexes and how they can be a part of a community solution are very valid. We heard that nonmandated agencies and nonprofit agencies are involved in informal partnerships, and perhaps it is time to formalize some of the partnerships. Co-operation, though, should be voluntary. It should not be forced co-operation, but we need to try to encourage, facilitate, more formalized partnerships.
The community needs to take--or wants to, not needs to, but wants to take responsibility and identify its own needs. I guess that is the Andrews Street concept. They have identified their needs, and then they develop programs around them. There are many underutilized people resources in the community. Many are willing to help, but we need to link them up to resources and the ability to be able to help.
Comments were made that we do not always look for people's strengths, and we need to focus more on what people's strengths are and focus on the assets of a healthy community and should develop directories of strengths and assets that are in a community. So very often we focus on the negative. We do not focus on the positive or look for people's strengths and try to channel them or direct them in certain areas, and there is a fine line between dependency and direction.
These are all people from the community who expressed these thoughts and that we need to constantly re-evaluate. I guess that is what we are doing right now. Volunteers should be recognized, encouraged and rewarded, and that is sometimes something that we forget to do. The whole issue around motivating and mandating schools to be community-based--school buildings are natural centres which could be better utilized by the community. That is why we are focusing on trying to break down those barriers.
We need to identify leadership within the community to enable them to build the bridges. We need to define neighbourhoods' resources, mandates, networks and leadership. We need to take responsibility for prevention out of Child and Family Services--that was a very interesting comment by the community--that Child and Family Services cannot be all things to all people, that the front-line workers are critical components of the whole network and that they need to be consulted, too, and worked with.
This is an interesting one: Programs are more successful when the family is part of the solution--they were talking about young offenders in some instances--and that there are more success stories with kids when their parents are involved in the activity and the programming and the case planning, that we need to co-ordinate our resources, and we have to remember that not all children are involved in sports, so although we have several community centres, there needs to be a focus, as well as on sports, on other activities for kids who are not sports-oriented.
They talked about long-term solutions; prevention is long term. They said to us that government has to do business in a different way, that we have to look at ways outside of government to help families.
Those are some of the comments that were made by community, and I find it very interesting that not everyone wants government to be all things to all people, that people want to develop their own solutions. They really believe that families and parents are an integral part of that solution, and families are healthier when they are all involved in a process of making their lives better.
So a lot of the things that we need to do, as far as co-ordination goes, in the secretariat is to look at the comments that people are making and help facilitate that kind of community need and desire to take some responsibility and action for their own lives with, sometimes, the superimposed bureaucratic solutions that may not necessarily meet the needs of the people out there who are looking for a different way of doing things.
So I really feel that we are moving in the right direction when we start to bring government departments through the secretariat and the community into a process of trying to find the solutions.
Ms. Cerilli: Well, the minister, in answer to my question, read a very long list, recommendations that were made to her in some consultation. I would just like it if she could provide that list and an indication of where the consultation was or the number of agencies and sort of the date or when that occurred.
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Mrs. Mitchelson: If I could just indicate, there was more than one consultation meeting. I think I had four in the city of Winnipeg around this document. It is probably all in the record because I have read it into the record now, but what we did was just compile notes that were informally taken. So I can provide those comments, but there were many, many agencies. I could probably get the list of agencies for my honourable friend, too, that were involved in the process.
Ms. Cerilli: Before we break, I do want to ask a few questions about funding of the secretariat.
There has been an increase in the Salaries and Benefits line, to start off with, by, I guess, about $15,000. I am just wanting to clarify, when I also look at the organizational chart that the minister has provided with the Estimates information, how this is working with the Children and Youth Secretariat in terms of staffing.
I know that a number of staff are being seconded from different departments, so if there still is an agreement then where their salary is being paid and accounted for in that department and if we could go through this organizational chart and confirm where that is occurring and where there are individuals such as Ms. Dudek who is from an agency that is not a government agency. So her salary must be included in that salary line, if I am understanding this correctly, the $434,000.
So could we just go through that process, starting perhaps with Family Services, with Dale Brownlee, an indication of if that person's salary is accounted through this department or if it is paid by Family Services, and what salary level that person is at?
If I might just continue, a number of staff--it seems like the ones, for example, on the second rung on the organizational chart, like Dorothy Dudek, are seconded to the secretariat. They perhaps are the only ones who are the full-time employees of the secretariat, and are the others who are indicated, some who were at the table, are they also still responsible for other duties in the department that they are from?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Yes, I think I have this, and I will get my staff to nod as I go through this, and if I am making a mistake, I will correct it immediately.
The salaries that are noted in here, the staffing of seconded staff is for the five departments that were initially a part of the secretariat, and they are staff years, and people do rotate into those positions from time to time. Not everyone is constant staff. Neil is going back to the Department of Education soon, and there will be someone else who will replace him. Sometimes, from time to time, a term is extended based on the need in the secretariat for the kind of support that Neil can provide.
But Dale Brownlee has not always been the person from Family Services. She happens to be there right now, and there might be from time to time someone else that moves into the secretariat, depending on the needs, the projects and the kinds of activity that will be ongoing, and they will change and evolve.
So we have someone now from Housing. We have not yet got anyone from Northern and Native Affairs to fill a half-time position. Then the positions--Dorothy Dudek, Roberta Vyse and Elizabeth Moore are people who are there for specific purposes, for specific projects, and so they are not included in the Estimates staffing, but they are paid for with a staff year. It is an additional staff year that has come in for a period of time to look at project-specific initiatives and as we need people from departments.
Dorothy Dudek will be paid for through a contract with the Department of Family Services. It will be a one-year contract, and it will be over at the end of that time. So from time to time, there will have to be contract people hired, and that is probably--if we are sort of seconding people from outside of government into the secretariat for project-specific things, they will be hired on contract. There will not be a staff year in the secretariat because when their work is done they will--
Ms. Cerilli: Just a point of clarification, there are no staff years indicated on the Estimates information that I have. I guess that is something that is usually in an annual report which we are going to talk about because I know that the secretariat did not have to do an annual report in the past.
But what I am wanting to find out really is, if we go across the board here from Dale to Theresa and Neil, if those salaries are being paid through the departments where they come from, and the only staff salaries for the secretariat are the CEO, the administration, the support staff, and the two staff years that you said had been added.
Mrs. Mitchelson: The only staff salary that is paid for through the secretariat is the CEO's staff salary, and the only staff year. The rest of the staff years are seconded from other departments. Does that make sense? Any staff year would be a staff year and a salary seconded from a department. They are paid for through their department, and the staff year is located in the department, but they are seconded for a period of time.
The only people who would not have a staff year in a department would be the people who might be brought in on contract from outside of government. Then there would not necessarily have to be a staff year. It could be contract dollars that are paid for by a department. The Department of Family Services happens to be paying for Dorothy Dudek to be seconded, on contract, from the community.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): The hour being 6 p.m., committee rise. Call in the Speaker.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Tweed): The hour being after 6 p.m., this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow (Friday).