Mr. Chairperson (Ben Sveinson): Would the Committee of Supply please come to order. This section of the Committee of Supply will be considering the Estimates of the Children and Youth Secretariat. Does the honourable Minister of Family Services have an opening statement?
Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson (Minister of Family Services): Thank you, Mr. Chairperson, and I am really pleased to introduce the Estimates of the Children and Youth Secretariat.
This past year has been a full one for the secretariat and a beneficial one for the children of Manitoba. We have taken some significant steps forward. I believe these steps have been welcomed and celebrated by the community as we focus on meeting the needs of children and youth in a co-rdinated and effective way. I know just listening after our budget was introduced, CJOB, for one, named children the clear winners in this year's budget, and there is no doubt that the budget introduced earlier this year by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) firmly established the importance our government places on supporting children, youth and their families in Manitoba.
This year's budget supports the groundwork set by the secretariat in how we create real change, change that means that there will be fewer children in care, fewer teens who are pregnant, fewer babies who are abused. This budget continues this government's process of building a brighter future with real alternatives for children, alternatives to support healthy and successful families and connecting families to the workforce to build a new and better future for Manitoba's children.
We know where to start, not when children are apprehended, not when the family is in crisis. We must work with the community and families to prevent children from becoming cases. This government recognizes you must maintain the safety nets now in place, and we realize the future is in changing the way we deliver services, and we have begun to build new alternatives. We have maintained the safety nets at the same time as we have put new dollars into new alternatives, $20 million in new funding.
We have put new resources into communities, 60 new positions for home visitors, new positions for public health nurses, new opportunities for training, new daycare spaces to support families as they seek a better future and new ways to approach support for families. We do not believe that the way to overcome issues for children in this province is to concentrate on caseloads. We believe in providing alternatives that make sure children never get to be on someone's caseload.
We are dealing with the causes, not addressing the symptoms after the fact. That is the future and that is the direction our government is taking, will continue to take, and one that communities are very supportive of. We do know that communities want to be part of the solution, that families need and want more support and that communities want to work together to provide a better future for our children.
The initiatives that I have recently announced successfully integrate the research undertaken into the needs of children in Manitoba and incorporate internationally recognized best practices. These efforts have resulted in a cohesive, dynamic and forward-thinking ChildrenFirst strategy in Manitoba.
I am pleased to update my honourable friends on our government's progress on the Postl report, Canada's first population health report on children and youth released in March of 1995. It was referred to the Children and Youth Secretariat to deal with the 116 recommendations that address determinants of health and cross-departmental boundaries. In a recent update of the status, and I know we will probably want to get into some detail on that as we go through these Estimates, we have dealt with 113 of the recommendations. Ninety recommendations are implemented or implemented and ongoing, 12 are in process, nine have been referred to a specific department, two are under consideration and three to date have no action.
Children and Youth Secretariat has used the health of Manitoba's children as a source for its strategic planning. This strategic plan will see initiatives introduced across the province. I want to emphasize that these are not pilot projects. We are implementing initiatives that provide a continuum of programs and partnerships that benefit all Manitoba's children, particularly children and youth at risk.
We have announced strategies that change how systems operate, and they are not strategies that label parents as unsuccessful because they are poor. We know that problems are not caused by someone being poor. Many of our lower income families are healthy and successful and should not be labelled as incapable. We want to work with them to provide supports when they are needed. Strategies we have announced already have included BabyFirst, EarlyStart, fetal alcohol syndrome strategy, Side by Side Projects, and initiatives around adolescent pregnancy.
The cornerstone of this continuum is the program that we have introduced known as BabyFirst. BabyFirst is modelled after the very successful Hawaii Healthy Start program which boasts of 76 percent reduction in the incidence of violence and neglect to children. BabyFirst establishes a partnership with the regional health authorities to set up a province-wide program.
As a result of this program, every child born in Manitoba will be assessed at birth to determine whether their families will need extra supports, so that they will be raised in a supportive environment, free of neglect and abuse. This assessment will be done by public health nurses and eventually by physicians in hospitals. If the assessment indicates that a family needs parenting support, the family will then receive the assistance of a home visitor. This home visitor works with the family, at first intensely and then with fewer visits as the family increases their skills and confidence in parenting. This program is very much geared to the family building the capacity to understand the needs of their child, and to understand how to access the new supports that exist within the community. This helps the family to make those community connections that build long-term supports.
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This program is careful to emphasize that we believe the key to successful children is successful families. Families need the tools and support that make better parents. Dr. Paul Steinhauer, world-renowned child psychiatrist, thinks we are on the right track by funding strategically and reviewing the evidence to get the best results from most kids. Dr. Steinhauer lists the positive outcomes of similar projects as reduced child abuse, fewer children in care, less delinquency, lower school failure rates and fewer psychiatric disorders.
To build this continuum of involvement with parents, acknowledging the importance of their role in raising successful children, we have introduced a second program called EarlyStart. Again, EarlyStart is patterned after an internationally recognized Best Practice, the Perry preschool model. This model has been able to demonstrate that a dollar invested in the early years has a benefit to the system of $7 over the lifetime of the child. It builds support systems that produce successful children who have less involvement with the law, have more successful marriages, and who are better able to contribute to the economy.
We are building our EarlyStart model in co-operation with the child daycare system in Manitoba. Bonnie Ash, who is the director of Morrow Day Care Centre, calls the program the beginning of a whole new way of delivering child care and is delighted to be a part of it. This model will allow the daycare centres to work with parents in supporting them in their parenting skills and to increase their awareness of the importance of their involvement in the education of their children.
We are extremely proud of the child daycare system in Manitoba. It is one of the best in Canada, and I was pleased during my Family Services Estimates process to describe the considerable investment we have made this year in the child care system. The $5.1 million in new expenditure will provide more flexible child care, a thousand more subsidized spaces, and those subsidies will now move with the child. This increase has also meant that we have increased infant and preschool space funding by 2 percent and fully funded an additional 2,000 infant and preschool spaces.
The daycare system will be excellent partners in the EarlyStart initiative. Manitoba system was built on the principles of active interaction with children. The EarlyStart program builds on that base and adds active home visiting. Four sites are now operating and an additional 15 sites are under development. Training of home visitors will begin shortly so that sites can become operational by September.
Understanding that not all children who are at risk have access to the daycare system, we are also establishing three of the sites in other locations. One of these will work in the rural area with home daycares, and two will work in the North with aboriginal communities; one primarily Metis and the other primarily First Nations. We believe this variety of implementation will allow us to evaluate models for further development.
One of the growing concerns that continues to put children at risk and destroy children's lives is fetal alcohol syndrome. We believe that about 240 children are born in Manitoba every year with FAS, only 60 of whom are diagnosed. We have introduced several programs to attempt to contain this entirely preventable disease. We have established two sites in Winnipeg and are co-operating with a third in the North that will intervene with women who have had one FAS child. We are patterning this initiative on a successful model out of Seattle and have been pleased that the Seattle group are interested not only in the training of those who will be working on these models but also on the evaluation and potential development of an enhanced approach to diagnosis.
Cheryl Susinski of the Nor'West Co-op Community Health Centre, one of our partners in this project feels the one-on-one intensive intervention approach proposed in this model has potential for success.
We are pleased to partner with the College of Physicians and Surgeons to produce an audio cassette for physicians to increase awareness about FAS and to provide them with information on the identification, diagnosis and treatment of FAS. Over 2,000 copies of this tape have been distributed to physicians, public health nurses, educators and front line workers across Manitoba. The Registrar of the College, Dr. Robert Walker, noted the potential savings of many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars in the prevention of even one case where long-term costs are considered.
We believe that FAS is such an outstanding concern that I have joined with my colleagues in Alberta and Saskatchewan to work together on solutions. This initiative saw all the health ministers on the Prairies formally requesting their respective provincially funded treatment centres to give priority to women who are pregnant. They have also written to their federal counterpart and proposed that he make the same request of federally funded centres.
In Manitoba, we are actively working with the coalition of women service providers to try to establish, in co-operation with the federal government, the continuum of treatment for pregnant women that will offer a variety of approaches. We know that these are, quite simply, first steps and starting points. We recognize that government alone cannot solve the widespread incidents of FAS in Manitoba. That is why we have been very pleased at the involvement of a particular northern community that is developing models to look at the issue in a holistic way. The community development model that is being used will mean that the whole community is engaged in the solution.
More than most issues, this is one that needs a community solution. Damon Johnston, co-chairman of the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre, another of our partners on the Stop FAS initiative, believes there are very few aboriginal individuals who can say they have not been affected by alcohol and its abuse. He added that it is not just affecting aboriginal people but all citizens.
The Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) described in her Estimates the details of the early literacy intervention program. This initiative will help at-risk, early-year students who have entered the school system in need of some additional supports, develop reading skills critical to their future progress. Success in school, we know, is an important element in the success of children overall, leading to less adolescent pregnancy, less juvenile crime and adults better able to contribute to the economic system.
We understand that schools play an important role in the community. They are a focal point for community education activity and a logical starting point for collaborative initiatives. They can also play an essential outreach role to those families who may need extra supports.
Side by Side, introduced this year, is an exciting model for government and community partnerships that will allow us to research the effectiveness of various support models to schools. Two schools are serving as test sites for models of community interaction. Three other schools have received funding to explore models of intervention. These five different models will provide us with valuable information on the best way to support schools in their ongoing challenge of interacting successfully with children, youth and their families who are at risk.
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I am pleased to note that the Canadian Education Association notes in their May newsletter that the Manitoba government is committed to looking at the best interests of children when determining programs and services for children and youth.
The fifth significant initiative in which the Children and Youth Secretariat has been involved, and I announced last month, is adolescent pregnancy. It is an unfortunate and indisputable fact that children who are born to adolescent parents in the majority of cases face dim prospects. Mothers who have their first child as an adolescent face higher odds of ongoing economic hardships. Our strategy has concentrated on four areas involving teens themselves in seeking solutions. This has meant consulting through focus groups, workshops and questionnaires with over 1,000 teens throughout the province.
Building the awareness of the serious consequences of adolescent pregnancy, I recently announced partnership with the Manitoba Association of School Trustees to develop an awareness campaign. Using youth-produced materials will alert adolescents, parents and all Manitobans to the serious consequences of adolescent pregnancy, building models that would have adoption considered as a more attractive alternative for children born to adolescent mothers and actively trying to prevent an adolescent who has one child from having a second. These last two objectives are being incorporated into a research test project through Youville Centre that involves both therapeutic intervention and research into the contributing factors to the occurrence of adolescent pregnancy.
Other partners range from friendship centres and northern nurse practitioners to home economic teachers who are incorporating the computerized Baby Think It Over dolls in their parenting and family life classes, to aboriginal youth groups and community-based pregnancy and sexuality educators.
Warren Collegiate purchased their own doll, and one student who used it said she learned how much time and effort it took to care for a child and does not want that responsibility for a long time.
Overlaying all of these initiatives have been a number of initiatives that confirm our commitment to ensuring good nutrition for Manitoba's children. We have allocated $2.1 million for children's nutrition programs, including new partnerships with community groups. We know that these will allow us to connect with various sectors of the ChildrenFirst strategy and represent a significant investment in the future of Manitoba's children.
The Children and Youth Secretariat has grown this year in response to the important goal of our government to put children first, to give children the first call on necessary resources. I think it is important to emphasize that the role of the Children and Youth Secretariat is not to establish a separate bureaucracy, nor does the work of the secretariat occur in isolation. We have begun to break down the walls or the silos and to overcome vertical thinking. The secretariat is developing expertise and bringing together partners facilitating common agreement regarding outcomes and objectives and basically setting the process in motion. This means building partnerships with all orders of government and with all departments. I must tell you that these partnerships have not been built without some hard work. We have acknowledged that we needed to do things differently, and this has meant breaking down territorialism, jusidictional issues and sometimes poor communication.
We must be on the right track, because I was delighted to have two new departments join the Children and Youth Secretariat partnership last year: Northern and Native Affairs, and Urban Affairs and Housing. Much of the funding for initiatives developed by the Children and Youth Secretariat exists within departmental funding. Most secretariat staffing is from secondments from various departments, and base funding for the Children and Youth Secretariat initiatives came from departmental funding.
This new way of operating is a unique model in Canada. We are pleased departments have seen themselves as active partners in this initiative. Our partnerships in the community have also been growing and receiving interest from other sectors in the community.
The Children and Youth Secretariat has had an active year. As I stated at the outset of my comments, we have taken some important steps and asked many people, many important partners, to walk along beside us, sometimes to guide us, other times to support us, but always to work with us as we work to meet the needs of Manitoba's children. The secretariat has become an important focal point for improvements by, for, and to government policy and activity for Manitoba's children.
I want to thank my honourable friends for listening so intently, and I look forward to a dialogue and discussion around the Estimates of the Children and Youth Secretariat. Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.
Mr. Chairperson: We thank the Minister of Family Services for those comments. Does the official opposition critic, the honourable member for Radisson, have any opening statement?
Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): Considering the few number of hours left in the Estimates time, I think I will just go right into questions.
Mr. Chairperson: We thank the critic for those remarks. We will now proceed to line 1.(a) Salaries and Employee Benefits. We invite the minister's staff, first, to join us at the table.
We ask that the minister introduce her staff present.
Mrs. Mitchelson: I would like to introduce Doris Mae Oulton, who is the CEO of the Children and Youth Secretariat; Dale Brownlee, Dorothy Dudek and Glenda Hildebrand, who are all program management staff.
Mr. Chairperson: Thank you. We are on line 34.1.(a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $879,300. We are on page 20 on the main Estimates book. Shall the item pass?
Ms. Cerilli: Maybe just before we get started, the minister can explain--I know Doris Mae and I understand her position, as well as Dorothy, who is working in early childhood, I believe. But I am not sure I am familiar with the other two staff and the areas that they are working in and the departments that they are from or the other agencies that they are from.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, Dale Brownlee is seconded from the Department of Family Services, and she is heading up the BabyFirst initiative. Glenda Hildebrand is seconded from the post-secondary side of Education, and she is working on adolescent pregnancy and other education initiatives.
Ms. Cerilli: Okay. Maybe that is where I will start talking about how other departments work with the secretariat and how the funding works. I know I have raised this in other years, and I am hoping that the minister received the letter that I sent to her prior to the Estimates beginning, and I asked for some information in this regard. I am wanting some information on how the money is flowing from other departments, and the other thing I had asked in that letter was--I am trying to remember. The minister has the letter in front of her obviously--
Mrs. Mitchelson: Partnerships.
Ms. Cerilli: The partnerships, right, the list of all the partnerships, government agencies, community agencies. One of the other concerns in the community is they do not know how to become a partner. They feel like they often are excluded from becoming a partner. They are not clear on the process. But I want to get into that separately, so, first of all, I am just wondering if the minister can provide me with the information I requested in a letter, and we will go from there.
Mrs. Mitchelson: I do have the information for my honourable friend. I know that maybe if I provide it today, I know we will probably still be in Estimates tomorrow. So, if I provide it now, we might have an opportunity to look at the information and ask questions.
Ms. Cerilli: This is the most clear financial information, it looks like, that I have seen so far in terms of the secretariat, so I just want to go through this a little bit. This is specifically allocation prior to the beginning of this fiscal year, April 1, '98, that was a reallocation of $3.9 million. So that sounds like, though, it is just reallocating money from the youth centre to the Emergency Crisis Stabilization Service which is in the community. So that money is still with Family Services, is it not? That is not money that has come through the secretariat into the community or anything like that.
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Mrs. Mitchelson: I think we need to clarify the role of the secretariat. The role of the secretariat has been to bring government departments together, look at the ways we were dealing with issues around youth. The Seven Oaks centre was one that we asked the secretariat to become involved in and take the lead on bringing government departments together. As a result of that and the decision to close down Seven Oaks Youth Centre, there was money from Seven Oaks, but there was also money from the Department of Education and the Department of Health that was combined to make the $3.9-million commitment to the new Youth Emergency and Crisis Stabilization Service. So the money is now housed in the Estimates of the Department of Family Services, but the secretariat's role, which is now finished, in that was to bring government departments together, look at combining resources, and having a more comprehensive program. So some of the money that would have been in Education or in Health has been reallocated to Family Services.
The secretariat is involved very much in the facilitation process, but they will not continue for ever and a day to manage programs. They are still line government departments' responsibilities, but they have provided the vehicle and the facilitation of getting government departments to contribute dollars towards a more comprehensive program.
Ms. Cerilli: I understood that it was not the role for the secretariat to take the money and start administering these programs, so I just wanted it to be clear, but you have clarified more than what is written here, that the money came from those three departments then and now it is through Family Services.
That is one of the other questions I had, before we go through this list. Is the money that you announced as new funding--for example, you said that there was new funding for nutrition programs and you said there was new funding for child care. That is new funding that has come in as you are developing the budget. That is not then money that is being reallocated. If you say that it is new funding, that is before all the departments have their budgets made.
Mrs. Mitchelson: It is new funding, but it is as a result of collaboration through the Child and Youth Secretariat around what the priorities might be. So if in fact it is new funding for FAS, it is funding that would be funding that would normally come, possibly, from the Department of Health, Department of Family Services, and there might be some Education dollars.
Collaboratively departments came together. The Child and Youth Secretariat facilitated the process of identifying what new projects should be funded, and many of them have input from Health, from Education, from Justice, from Family Services. So the new dollars are a more collaborative approach.
Where in the past we would have gone into the Estimates process and I, as the Minister of Family Services, would have gone in isolation asking for dollars for new initiatives for my programs, this is a process whereby all departments recognized and identified certain issues as priority issues. So there is a more collaborative approach and as a result a better program, with all departments understanding and buying into the need for these services for children in a co-ordinated way.
Ms. Cerilli: You have gone through this fairly detailed overview in your opening statement that highlighted new money for child care spaces and new money for the nutrition programs and for all the other programs that you mentioned. How much of that is the money from the federal transfer from the National Child Benefit? I believe that we were going to get over $9 million from that. Is that what is making up that money?
Mrs. Mitchelson: I think it is close to about $10 million that would have been redirected from the National Child Benefit.
Ms. Cerilli: So if I total up the new initiatives that you have announced, does it total to $10 million?
Mrs. Mitchelson: We have indicated in our budget that there is over $20 million for new initiatives for children. That is right; $10 million is as of a result of reinvestment through the National Child Benefit and the rest is new provincial dollars.
Ms. Cerilli: So, to clarify, then, that $10 million that is new provincial dollars, did that come out of general revenue prior to the budgets of the various departments that are part of this secretariat?
Mrs. Mitchelson: It is a combination of both. Some of it is out of general revenue, and some of it is out of contributions from line government departments.
Ms. Cerilli: Can you then give me that breakdown, like what proportion of the $10 million is from new money from general revenue and what is sort of reallocated from other departments for these priorities for the Youth Secretariat?
Mrs. Mitchelson: In this year's budget, I guess about a million of it would be reallocated from old budget dollars. Then, out of the $10 million, I guess $9 million would be new dollars, with the collaborative approach taken that all governments believe that these were priority areas and that they overlapped. So many of the new initiatives that are being undertaken--and you will probably have seen by the announcements that it might be the Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik) and the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) making the announcement, that it might be the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), the Minister of Family Services. I know that on the adolescent pregnancy one it was the combination of Health, Northern Affairs and Family Services.
I do want to make that point, that it is no longer one ministry working in isolation of other ministries. These are joint initiatives and new initiatives that were put forward by more than one government department as priority.
Ms. Cerilli: Okay, so what the minister is explaining to me is that of the $20 million that the throne speech and the government are talking about that has gone to new children's initiatives, $9 million of it is through this new process that she has talked about, where all the cabinet ministers say collectively: this is a priority. On the Human Services Committee of Cabinet, they decide the priorities together, and they are saying that this is where this $9 million is going to go, even though the initiative itself may be under one specific department. I understand that. That $9 million, then, is coming from a number of different department allocations. Is that correct?
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Mrs. Mitchelson: Where in the past we would have broken it down into a new initiative for Health, or a new initiative for Family Services, what we are saying is these are joint initiatives. Ultimately, one department will take the lead because we do not want the bureaucratic overlap and duplication happening, but, yes, it is sort of ministers sitting down, placing priorities on areas, and having a more comprehensive and collaborative approach to programming that can benefit certainly the health needs, the protection needs, the prevention needs that we would have dealt with in the past in isolation of each other.
Ms. Cerilli: Well, the total budget for these five programs that you have listed: the BabyFirst, the Stop FAS, the EarlyStart and adolescent pregnancy--I seem to have six all of a sudden--and early literacy, maybe you can, first of all, clarify for me; maybe I have these listed wrong. Are there five or six you said that were the priority, and they are BabyFirst, EarlyStart, the FAS one, Early Literacy and Adolescent Pregnancy?
Mrs. Mitchelson: If you look at the paper on page 2, they are 1998-99 initiatives, and it spells out what the amounts are for BabyFirst, EarlyStart, FAS, the FAS program, school links services, adolescent pregnancy, nutrition, child care, training, and the whole list.
Ms. Cerilli: So my question is then: if I add up all of this list of the initiatives, is that what equals the $20 million?
Mrs. Mitchelson: I have to get a calculator; I think this probably adds up to significantly more than $20 million. [interjection] Yes, and I think that $14 million should not be in there. Okay? If we can remove that. I saw this five minutes before I came into the room. The rest, I would have to get a calculator and add that up. I do not know exactly what we would find it would add up to, but it would certainly be more.
Ms. Cerilli: My question is, though, you know the new initiatives under the secretariat. Maybe I need to clarify. The $20 million that were announced in the throne speech and the budget as the new initiatives, are all those under the purview of the Children and Youth Secretariat? No, okay.
Mrs. Mitchelson: No, they are not. The initiatives that I announced in my opening remarks are initiatives that were under the Children and Youth Secretariat. I indicated that I had spoken about child daycare in my Estimates, because the $5.1 million in main is a reallocation, is a part of the National Child Benefit reinvestment.
It is complicated because not everything that falls under the purview of the Child and Youth Secretariat is reinvestment under the National Child Benefit, and not every program or every increment for children falls under the Children and Youth Secretariat. But the initiatives, the five priority areas that I talked about in my opening statement, are areas where the Children and Youth Secretariat has played a significant role in the development by bringing departments together and by bringing community organizations together.
Mrs. Myrna Driedger, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair
Madam Chairperson, I can just add another comment here, that the details of program allocations at the Children and Youth Secretariat has been, and continues to be involved in, add up to about $3.3 million.
Ms. Cerilli: That is the question that I have been asking for a long time, is to start making clear, and that is why I was complaining that none of your reports to date really clarify how much money, through all of this reallocation of government departments, is shifting because of the co-ordination of the Children and Youth Secretariat. I think it is important to document that and to demonstrate that, the kind of impact that the Secretariat is having in that way. So just to clarify again, you have said that how much of all those programs is under this Children and Youth Secretariat reallocations?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Madam Chairperson, for the 1998-99 fiscal year, new dollars that are available for children, $3.3 million is money that has been co-ordinated by the Child and Youth Secretariat, all of the initiatives that I talked about: BabyFirst, EarlyStart, adolescents and pregnancy, fetal alcohol syndrome, Side by Side, and evaluation of those projects.
Those have all been developed by the leadership of the Children and Youth Secretariat bringing together government departments and community to determine how best to serve children and families in a different way. That is for this year.
I think if you go back to last year's initiatives under the Secretariat--let me try to explain this really clearly. The $3.3 million that I just talked about for the new initiatives is in the Children and Youth Secretariat's budget this year, but next year that money will not necessarily be in the Children and Youth Secretariat's budget because it may be allocated to a government department that takes the lead on those initiatives. Last year there was $500,000 in the Children and Youth Secretariat's budget for programs. Those programs are no longer in this year's Children and Youth Secretariat's budget allocation because there are line departments that are delivering those programs and the money would be allocated under that line in a specific department.
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So from year to year, some of the new things that will be taking place you will see in the budget allocation for the Children and Youth Secretariat, but ultimately they are not responsible for delivery of programs, but they are responsible for the evaluative component, the research component. They will be the vehicle within government that will monitor, will measure outcomes and help us determine whether there are changes that need to be made to programs or what needs to happen. So their role and function basically will be to monitor, to first of all co-ordinate the activity between departments. Ultimately, when we determine what a program will be, there will be a line department that will be delivering that program under one ministry with the evaluative component being the function and the role of the secretariat.
Ms. Cerilli: Okay, I am understanding that. I am also understanding then what I was reading earlier that the list you have provided me about reallocations are the ones prior to this year, and that is the Seven Oaks youth centre. The previous year is for the FAST program, and then this implementation of the system to support technology dependent children, I guess, is supposed to be there, provides for the reallocation of funds from Health. I think that is the one that the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) likes to talk about. Is that correct? Perhaps this other one, too. She is often referring to $400,000. I believe that this $800,000 one for the technology is one that has been ongoing. That was the first one that the secretariat did, so I am following this. Urban Sports Camp, where did that reallocation come from?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Madam Chairperson, this is $900,000 under the Winnipeg Development Agreement, the crime initiatives.
Ms. Cerilli: What is the secretariat's role with that project? As I understood it, that had become a WDA initiative, which then means that that is money from different levels of government, I believe. I wonder if you can also tell us, after you explain the secretariat's role in this, if you also have plans for how that $900,000 is going to be spent, or that is money that has already been spent on sports camps. If it fits in with this list, then maybe just a confirmation of where that money was spent.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Madam Chairperson, the Child and Youth Secretariat was responsible for bringing all the people together around the table, co-ordinating the initiative, ensuring that we were moving in the right direction. We do not have the specifics around all of the initiatives that were funded. I know Turtle Mountain, Native Alliance were a couple of examples. We could get all of that detailed information. I will have it for tomorrow for my honourable friend, but it is those kinds of initiatives. Once, in fact, the secretariat completes the job, the co-ordination and the program gets up and running, it usually moves to a specific government department to take the lead, and this one of course is Justice. So it is now in the Department of Justice, but the secretariat played the role in facilitating and leading the process to develop the programming.
Ms. Cerilli: Because the WDA is a five-year agreement, the Urban Sports Camp I would think is also going to be a five-year-long initiative under that agreement, am I correct?.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Yes.
Ms. Cerilli: That $900,000 then, is that over the life of the agreement or that is what has already been spent under the agreement? If the secretariat knows, what is the total allocated under the agreement for the sports camps?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Madam Chairperson, I will get the detail on how much of that has been spent. Nine hundred thousand is the total allocation over the five-year period for Urban Sports Camps. But, again, I will indicate that the role of the secretariat, although they are not responsible for delivery of the program, are responsible for evaluation of the program. So they will be doing the evaluative process.
If, in fact, at the end of the five-year term, it is determined that these projects--and this is specific to the Winnipeg Development Agreement. Not all of the projects that are under the purview of the evaluation process in the Child and Youth Secretariat have a five-year limit, but the Winnipeg Development Agreement ones do. So we will have to evaluate, monitor the outcomes, and if they are positive programs, look for a way to continue supporting those.
Ms. Cerilli: I am assuming then the next, on page 2, the circus program, that is also in Justice now.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Madam Chairperson, this one is still under the purview of the Children and Youth Secretariat. Apparently, in the first year of operation, there was some determination that we needed to change the model somewhat, so they are still involved in the evaluation and the implementation of some changes. I guess they learned something from their experience in the first year and have determined that there needs to be some things that are done differently. So they are still involved at this point, and that has not been turned over to a line department yet.
Ms. Cerilli: That $60,000, that was for one year of the program, right, and that was last year.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Madam Chairperson, yes, that was for last year's funding, and it will be funded again this year, but we are still working on negotiation and implementation of the new model.
Ms. Cerilli: So if I am following correctly, then the $60,000 for this year for that program would be included in the Estimate booklet amount for the Child and Youth Secretariat, the $3.3 million.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Yes, it is still included in that 3 point whatever million, $3.3 million.
Ms. Cerilli: Maybe just to take a break as we are going through this, I can say to the minister that obviously this is fairly complex. I am understanding it. I know that there are lots of people in the community who do not understand how this works, and I think that part of the reason for that is the secretariat has changed its approach a number of times since it began in '94.
I have with me all the documents that were generated when you first started in the '94-95 year when you did that analysis of all the expenditures in government. You had the Building Healthy Communities, Monitoring Manitoba's Progress, and the Restructuring Service Systems Initiative.
Then you created the five working groups, and that went on for over a year. Those five working groups had a number of subgroups, and that process all reported. Then those working group reports seemed to just disappear. A lot of those people, we know they were upset. They felt like they had not been informed on an ongoing basis. They feel like now they are out of the loop. They are excluded really from knowing what has happened to all of their work.
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Then you came up with the ChildrenFirst strategy and a couple of the other supplementary documents that go with that. Now you have a whole different set of priorities that you have explained for this year and the way that it is working now.
So I think maybe there has been a learn-as-you-go thing that has happened with the secretariat, but there has been a lot of paper generated. The other issue I raised today in Question Period was you were also at the stage when you have had the working groups supposed to be focusing on implementing the Postl report. A lot of people do not think that that has been reported on adequately enough. So I think two things that need to happen is there has to be some better reporting on the initiatives of the Children and Youth Secretariat. The kind of information that you have given to me today, I think more of that should be in the annual report. But, as well, it seems like you have taken one approach and then changed directions a couple of times, and I think that has contributed to the kind of confusion that is out there because a lot of people do still say, what does the Children and Youth Secretariat do?
Mr. Chairperson in the Chair
I think that you are doing some good things; I think that we are critical at times because some of them are very much on a small scale, and that is occurring at the same time that you are making big cuts on large community programs, whether it is in Education, whether it is in Family Services, when you made the welfare cuts, when you made cuts previously in daycare, when you had--oh, I mean I have gone through this list a number of times of all the different cuts that have been made. Then, at the same time, you are reallocating a few dollars here and there. So I think that has been going on at the same time that you have gone in a number of directions with the Children and Youth Secretariat. It has contributed, I think, to the kind of cynicism that is out there about the secretariat and also to the kind of confusion that is out there.
In your opening statement, you quoted a number of agencies that are partners with the secretariat that think they are doing great things. Maybe, if more people could become partners or understood that there was a clear system for how they become partners, that would change. I remember last year when we were talking about the half million dollars that was available for partnering with community groups, a number of community groups said to me, well, how do we become a partner? How do we get our ideas accepted by the government so that we can be part of these solutions? Still, that is another thing that is not clear to the community, what are the criteria, how does that process work for a community agency to become a partner.
So, I do not know if you want to respond to any of those issues, but those are the kinds of things that I am hearing out there in the community, and those are the kinds of things that people, I think, are concerned about in terms of the secretariat.
I want to continue going through some of these specific initiatives on the sheets that you have provided me with, but I will give the minister a chance to respond.
Mrs. Mitchelson: I think a lot of comments that my honourable friend has put on the record are certainly legitimate comments. I think, when you look at the creation of the Children and Youth Secretariat, it was something that no other province across the country was doing. There was not--
An Honourable Member: B.C. did.
Mrs. Mitchelson: I am not sure, because B.C. just went through a process long after we established the Children and Youth Secretariat to create a ministry responsible for children, and that was certainly after the secretariat was started up. I know that they are still having growing pains in significant ways with that process. I know in my discussions with the minister from British Columbia, when we get together at meetings, there is no easy, quick-fix solution to any of these issues, and they are experiencing significant difficulties still.
But I do want to indicate that we started this with, you know, great expectations that barriers could be broken down and things could happen really quickly, and in reality that is not the way things work. It does take time. Yes, we have had some challenges along the way and have had to change in some ways the way we are trying to do business. I think ultimately this is the very first year, after significant planning last year, that we have got new initiatives that are very meaningful based on the research and the data that the Children and Youth Secretariat had collected. I guess I would have liked to have seen things move a little more quickly. Reality is it did take some time. I know that there was some confusion on the part of the community on what the secretariat was really doing and what they had accomplished. I think that, if you look back today at what has happened over the last year, you will see that significant movement has been made in the right direction.
The community partnerships certainly are there, and government departments have participated in a significant way in the development of these initiatives. So we have come a long way and I am not saying there is not a long way to go, but we have made a good start. I think you will see the kinds of priority initiatives that we have announced in this year's budget--several of the announcements that I have made already and a couple still to come will indicate that community is working through the secretariat very closely with different government departments in a way that they have never worked before.
So I do want to indicate that it has taken some time, but I guess I still believe that the time and effort were worth it because we now are seeing the results of the dialogue and the discussion. I know, just from feedback that I am hearing from, that community representatives that may have been confused in the past are indicating very clearly that they understand and see the significant role that the secretariat is playing and that they are pleased to be a part of that process. So I am hopeful that we will continue to move in the direction that sees government departments--and I know we have made that commitment as ministers on the human services side of government--to work in a collaborative way to try to set priorities and to ensure then that the community is understanding where government is coming from and asking them to be significant partners in the process.
I am pleased with the results over the last year, and I think we will continue to see the kinds of co-operative community partnerships that have developed. I think, as time goes by, you will see less and less confusion and more and more praise of the kind of thing that is happening as a result of the good work that has been done. Some of it took a little longer than we might have expected. It is not always easy. I sometimes experience some frustration as the lead minister, knowing that I do not have responsibility for running each and every department on the human services side, and that it does take a different way of thinking on behalf of the bureaucracy in each department. It takes a different way of trying to reach out to the community. I think a lot of the people we have on the secretariat today understand and know the community, have a way of bringing people together around the table, and try to figure out how we can do things better.
So we are working. Have we solved all the problems? No. Is there more work to do? Absolutely, but we have seen some good positive examples of how government departments have interacted well and how we have developed the community partnerships to see some of our new initiatives get up and started.
Ms. MaryAnn Mihychuk (St. James): Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister to perhaps indicate what new areas the Child and Youth Secretariat is exploring for the future. What are the new areas that you intend to tackle?
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Mrs. Mitchelson: I certainly know that there is a significant amount of work that needs to be done on the FAS/FAE issue, and we have announced some things. I have indicated that we are working--the Children and Youth Secretariat is taking the lead on what we call the pan-Prairie initiative--with Saskatchewan and Alberta around joint initiatives around FAS/FAE, because there is not anyone that has the answers as yet. It certainly is an issue that has been identified, not only by Health ministers, but social services ministers across the three prairie provinces.
We think we have a lot of the same issues, same demographics, and I certainly think that, by sharing information and trying to work together, we may not have to re-invent the wheel, but that we may be able to work very well together, regardless of political stripe, on issues that are real to many families and children across our three provinces. So there will be an ongoing role and a significant role over the next period of time in that respect.
On the school system side, I know that there certainly may be things that the Child and Youth Secretariat could become more involved in, but I think we have to wait for the special needs review and the recommendations from that review and what the implications might be for the Children and Youth Secretariat as a result of that.
I think that there is--I know that there is some work to do to try to ensure that the aboriginal Headstart Programs that the federal government has initiated and is funding certainly are coordinated and working in sync with some of the new initiatives on early intervention that we are embarking upon to ensure that there is some consistency between the programs and that we are not duplicating efforts. So that is certainly a challenge and something that we have tasked the Children and Youth Secretariat to look at.
I can say that there will be more money as a result of the National Child Benefit available next year on a full-year basis, that the $10 million that we had to re-invest this year was as a result of a start-up date of July 1 for the National Child Benefit. Full-year funding for the National Child Benefit will be next year $14 million, so we will have another $4 million to re-invest, plus the federal government has made a commitment to an increase in the National Child Benefit payment next July in next fiscal year. So we will have $14 million on full-year funding for what they have committed to date; but, as they incrementally increase the National Child Benefit, there will be more money.
So we are looking at probably at least another $5 million there and possibly another $5 million the year after because they have made a commitment to two increments, which should double the National Child Benefit over the next two fiscal years. So there will be either expansion of some of the programs like BabyFirst, EarlyStart--an enhancement of those programs, and there may be other new initiatives based on research and what Manitobans are telling us they need.
There is a challenge ahead. We will have more resources, not only through re-investment to the National Child Benefit, but as we as government see fit to place priorities and additional resources into children and families. We will have to develop those, but there is no end to the amount of work that can be done and needs to be done. We will continue to try to build upon the successes, which I believe we will see in some of the initiatives that are just getting up and running.
Ms. Mihychuk: Can the minister tell me if there has been a study of the situation of daycare and nursery programs? Nursery programs are provided by Winnipeg 1 School Division and, I understand, Frontier School Division for four-year-olds. I would gather from their investigation that there is considerable merit for offering what traditionally has not been considered a school program. Has the Youth Secretariat reviewed those studies and come to a conclusion whether that is a worthwhile investment for early years education, and whether there are going to be initiatives in that area for four-year-olds?
Mrs. Mitchelson: I am informed that the partnership that we have developed with Frontier School Division is one that is working really well. Because of the unique situation in the North of there not being a great availability of nursery school or child care centres outside of the school system, we are working with them to see whether we could develop a model that would work around the nursery schools in Frontier School Division. So that partnership is there, the dialogue is ongoing with the Children and Youth Secretariat, and we are looking at a model that might be able to work.
As far as the City of Winnipeg goes, I know that we have based the EarlyStart program on the Perry Preschool model which is not a model that is run out of school nursery schools, but it is done in independent facilities based on the mentorship or the home visitor model where there needs to be significant contact with the parents and involvement of the parents in the process and the program. Of course, one of the issues has been for us as a government, and one of the issues I have struggled with as the Minister of Family Services and responsible for child care and the whole special social needs component of child care, is that we have very often in the past worked with children in a very structured setting in child care centres, five days a week, eight hours a day and have done nothing to address the issues of where the follow-up comes when the child goes back into a home that may be experiencing some family disfunction.
The whole process around the EarlyStart program is to ensure that there is parental involvement, so that while the child is learning in the child care facility, the parents are involved, and there is some actual connection right to the home after hours and on weekends so that the family support is there and the whole family is growing and learning how to become a healthier family. So this is a process that is not just dealing in isolation or just with children in isolation of dealing with the families. It is a comprehensive approach. To date, I think that our focus has been on child care centres as the focus because of the low ratios too that are available in child care centres on trying to see whether that process can meet the needs of families.
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I do not think there has been a proposal from Winnipeg 1. I mean I do not think we will ever rule anything out, but I think at this point in time our focus has been on partnering with child care centres and having them hire the home visitors or the mentors from the community that will go back into community homes to ensure that after hours and on weekends there is connection and that families are working with the child care centre to ensure that there is a holistic approach to the developmental years and preparation for school.
Ms. Mihychuk: One of the challenges is that there are many children who do not access nursery schools or any type of other service provided by a number of agencies, community agencies, governments, structured day cares or nursery schools. In fact, in my previous life as a school trustee, it was sometimes the children that we wanted to touch to bring into schools so that they could have access to books and to socialization that did not have that opportunity. They were fairly well functioning, perhaps ethnic communities that relied on grandparents or extended family to look after them, and the children came to school quite unprepared for the academic setting. In fact, daycares were marvellous places for providing children with the academic background and getting them into what we call, and what the minister has called, a successful learning start which is so fundamental.
But my concern is about all those children who we do not reach out to and are not identified by Child and Family Services as being a crisis family and do not access daycare, do not access schools. Those are the children I think that are the challenge we need to reach out. So I am asking the minister if there has been any evaluation and whether there are plans to perhaps meet the needs of those families.
Ms. Mitchelson: I think it is important for me to point out that there are two different focuses that we are taking. EarlyStart is one focus, which is on children ages two to five. The other one is BabyFirst, which is prenatal to two years old, where now we will have the public health system evaluating which infants or which moms prenatally might be at risk with identification right in the hospital which children and moms might need additional supports. BabyFirst, then, which is a province-wide program, will be ensuring that we work very intensively with those moms and their children.
A lot of research tells us that by the time a child is the age of two, if in fact they have not been nurtured, if they have not bonded, if they have not been parented well, it is almost too late. What we want to do is get in right at the front end. As a result of that intensive working, if there is still a need for some support, children will then be referred to the EarlyStart programs in child care centres, child care homes, and they can continue on with that kind of intervention or support. So it is a start.
We do know that in some cases we are not going to see results until we see those children that enter the BabyFirst program today graduate from high school 18 years from now, but we have to start. I think if we can look at the intervention of those families at birth that are deemed high risk, ensure they are connected to a BabyFirst program and a mentor that works with them very intensively in the first months of that infant's life, then as we see families grow and thrive, a little less intervention. Then ensure that if in fact they still need support, we ensure they are connected to an EarlyStart program. We will hopefully be able to find some better solutions.
We have had a lot of discussion in the House in Question Period around the whole issue of prevention and Child and Family Services. I have certainly made comments in my opening remarks. We want to be able to get at children before they become a statistic in the Child and Family Services system. We would hope that there would need to be less and less referrals and less and less prevention activity done through the Child and Family Services agencies because we are catching them up front.
I think there is room for all of us to be partners in the prevention side of things. I know that in the past, and I do not accept all of the blame, but I think governments of all political stripes have expected that our Child and Family Services system can be all things to all families. We expect them to protect children and intervene when families are abusing children. A lot of the focus for prevention has been placed on the Child and Family Services agencies also. I believe that educators, early childhood educators, public health nurses, teachers and others certainly can be a part of that process, and we should not be placing all of our expectations on our Child and Family Services system.
There is a real dilemma here, because I have been out, gone out after hours with Child and Family when I was first appointed to this ministry, and I heard workers saying, you know, we are the most hated people in the community. People think when we knock on their doors, we are there to grab their kids and take them away. I think that sometimes we place them in a very awkward position because we are saying go out and knock on the door and say I am from Child and Family and I am here to help you. But on the same token, parents are very frightened because they believe that if they admit to a Child and Family Services worker from the agency that they are maybe not a good parent or they need help in parenting, they might just take their kids.
But I believe that there is a more open-door process between public health nurses and the community, and people do not feel threatened by a public health nurse coming into their home. They do not feel threatened by someone who might be hired through a child care facility. They do not feel threatened. They feel that those people are there in a different capacity.
So I think what we need to do is ensure that everyone involved, all of the professionals throughout the system, are involved in the early intervention initiatives. I think we need to ensure that we are not placing all of the expectation on Child and Family Services agencies to deliver that kind of support. We do know that there are community agencies out there that really believe that they have the connection to the community, that they can hire people who live in those communities--maybe have been there, done that and turned their lives around--to help others who are needing that kind of support. I think a lot of our models now are focusing on that kind of a process to try to ensure that the whole community is involved.
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We know there have been some really positive models. I always raise the issue of Andrews Street Family Centre, but they have done really good things in their community, and I know that there are those kinds of activities ongoing right throughout our city of Winnipeg in small pockets. I know that over at Victor Mager School in St. Vital, where the day child care is in the school, in Victor Mager School--very high needs, a very high number of social needs, daycare support. I know that they have drop-in centres there for them. There are a lot of immigrant families in that community also.
This whole piece now of having a home visitor whom they can hire who has connection with the child care facility, has connection with the school, has connection with the drop-in centre certainly will augment their ability to work in that community in a very significant way to provide the kinds of supports that those families need.
The challenge, I think, for us--and it is a challenge that I am very aware of--is to ensure that we are not tripping over each other trying to help families but that we are co-ordinated in our approach and that the Child and Family Services agencies are referring to other community organizations that are doing prevention work and that we are working in tandem with the Child and Family Services agencies, understanding and recognizing that we do not want to leave children in unsafe circumstances if they need protection but that there are many out there who want to see families healthier and are prepared to give something to that process.
We want to make sure that that is co-ordinated so we are not overlapping and duplicating or fighting over who is going to serve families, but we are working together, because there are certainly enough families and children to go around, and there are certainly enough organizations that are prepared to commit to dealing with the issues. So it is critical that we have some co-ordination there and that the right information that can be shared is shared, so that we are not working at cross-purposes to each other.
That is the biggest challenge as we move into new areas and as we bring more of the community in, ensuring that we try to do the right things for the right reasons.
Ms. Mihychuk: Can the minister tell us if there has been an evaluation of the parent-child centres that used to function in schools? They provided an opportunity for any family members to come in, receive parenting courses. It was a nurturing environment with resource materials, books, toy-lending libraries located in schools in a very friendly setting. That was to provide those families with an early opportunity to get to know teachers, the school setting, to become familiar with the libraries, gymnasium.
This was a program that was conducted in--I am familiar with many schools in Winnipeg 1, it may have been provincial but was considered to be a very successful program. However, the funding was cut because, I believe, it was a multigovernment funding proposal like the Winnipeg Development Agreement. School divisions--I know that I was on the board at the time--felt that this was an area that really spanned the scope of a number of different areas. It was providing health information. It was providing parenting courses. It was providing a socialization function in that there were not enough education dollars to provide this service. So I ask the minister, has there been an opportunity to review programs that were considered to be extremely successful and were multijurisdictional? Would she consider funding parent-child centres in schools once again?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, I seem to vaguely recall the program. I think it was called the Core Area Initiative which was federal-provincial-municipal cost-sharing. I guess it was similar to what the Winnipeg Development Agreement is now, so it was the three levels of government. Under that program, the parent-child centres were funded.
At the end of the Core Area Initiative, there was an evaluation done, an independent evaluation if my memory serves me correctly. I have never seen that. That was long before my time here in Family Services. The evaluation showed that it was not a terribly effective program. I do not have access to that evaluation in any way, but I think the evaluation indicated that there were some real concerns with the program.
So very often when you get three levels of government participating in some sort of an agreement that has a term at the end of it--I know that the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) was talking about money running out within five years under the Winnipeg Development Agreement, and yes, that is true. But so very often if the program is not renewed--and it was not--by the federal government, there is an expectation that the provincial government will just pick up the programs and fund them.
We all know that we cannot always backfill for a federal void in programming, but I do want to indicate that we do recognize and realize, and I think it was part of our election document, that we have the bricks and mortar--I say very often out in the community when I am meeting with people, we have the bricks and mortar in our school facilities that we pay to build, just as we pay for the capital construction of hospitals or nursing homes. You have hospitals and nursing homes that are utilized 24 hours a day, seven days a week, yet the capital construction in both facilities would be significantly similar.
I guess I know that from time to time school boards and school divisions believe that they own those facilities and that there is sometimes a struggle to get school facilities opened up in a really meaningful and significant way to a community and community organizations. I understand that there are some issues. I am not sure they are insurmountable issues. We need that kind of dialogue and discussion. We need lots of support to say these are community buildings, they are buildings that are paid for by the taxpayers of Manitoba, and we need to figure out the best ways that we can utilize those bricks and mortars without building other areas. So I hear the comments around how school facilities could be used better for family resource centres, and we have indeed through the Children and Youth Secretariat held meetings with school divisions.
Winnipeg No. 1 was at the meeting around family resource centres and how we might look towards facilitating the creation of some of those within our schools. I know that as a result we have had at least some success with Seven Oaks School Division, and Elwick School has a family resource centre now. I know that we have had some success with St. George School in St. Vital. We are looking at a family resource centre there.
Ms. Mihychuk: The minister explained that there are going to be a number of home visitors, and, if I understand correctly, that there will be one for rural Manitoba and two for northern--or how many home visitors have we got identified for rural and northern areas?
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Mrs. Mitchelson: We are looking at a total of about 60 home visitors throughout the province. We would like to see a few more than half in rural and northern Manitoba than in the city of Winnipeg, but those details are being worked out. In some sites there will be one home visitor. I think the one that we announced in--I know that, in the Victor Mager project that was announced already, there are two home visitors. So, depending on the site, and sometimes there will be a cluster of sites that might have one home visitor because that is what makes sense based on the needs of that community, but we are anticipating that, when the full projects are up and running right throughout the province, there will be more than 50 percent of the home visitors in rural and northern Manitoba.
Ms. Cerilli: I will just pick up on this because you are talking about the home visitors that are going to be part of the BabyFirst program?
Mrs. Mitchelson: And EarlyStart.
Ms. Cerilli: Specifically with the BabyFirst program, I was under the understanding that all new moms, after they have their children and they return from the hospital, they are already to have a visit from a public health nurse.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Right now the process is that everyone, when they leave hospital, is visited once by a public health nurse, I think after they have had a baby. That will not change with this. This is assessment of the needs or the risk of the babe and the mom when they go home. If there is an assessment that they need more intervention than that one visit, we will put in place the process that BabyFirst has where there will be significant and frequent home visits.
Now, that public health nurse may not do the home visit. That public health nurse will co-ordinate the home visitors, so it will be under the direction of public health nurses, but the assessment will be done, the needs will be assessed and then a plan will be put in place for that individual mom and child. So it will not take away from the public health nurses today that visit people after the birth of a baby. It will be an augmentation of support and service where there is a risk assessed.
Ms. Cerilli: Then is that assessment done in the hospital or is it going to be done in the home?
Mrs. Mitchelson: The objective of the program by the end of the first year is to have them all done in the hospital. Right now some are done and assessed in the hospital, but there are others that are not assessed or are not seen until they go home by a public health nurse, so that assessment would be done in the home, but the ultimate end goal is to have that assessment done before the mom and babe leave the hospital. We are anticipating by the end of the first year we will be able to have that in place.
Ms. Cerilli: Why are you having the assessment done in the hospital? It seems to me to build on what is existing already with the public health nurse in the home and have the assessment done in the home since there are so many variables once you go home that would impact on the health of both mom and the babe, especially if there are other children at home. I mean there are all sorts of factors.
Mrs. Mitchelson: The focus of BabyFirst ultimately would be to try to ensure that there is contact prenatally, but we do not always know prenatally. I mean, there are women, young girls, believe or not, that walk into the hospital and the first indication that anyone has that they are pregnant is they are delivering a baby and they have never had medical care, they have never been involved in Child and Family, they have dropped out of school and nobody knows where they have gone. So in those cases I think it is important that we assess the risk and ensure that we have a plan in place before they leave the hospital.
Ultimately, if there is a risk assessed, because we know and we identify that there is a young female, pregnant and alone with no family supports, we would anticipate that the BabyFirst program would kick in at least in the last trimester of pregnancy, so that you have already done that evaluation, you have assessed and you know what kinds of support. It would be great to have the plan up front, but we do not want young girls leaving the hospital without some sort of a process in place.
Ms. Cerilli: I can appreciate that, but I would think that this would also work with the existing public health nurse system, and it sounds like that is partially intentioned, but, as the minister knows, I have just gone through this process. I can say that the public health nurse that visited me in Transcona was excellent, and she was very helpful. I do know that she phoned me the day I got home from hospital. She was there the next morning. She was a tremendous help with breastfeeding.
On the other hand, that was Transcona. In the north end where a friend of mine who has recently also just had her first child, it was weeks before a public health nurse was calling her or there. The last time I talked to her I do not think there still had been anyone. I would be very concerned that that system is not going to be improved so that all the births occurring throughout the province would have some kind of initial assessment, and it would not just be what is identified as high risk at the hospital. So that is the reason I am raising this as a concern because I think that, as soon as possible, all new moms need to have that visit from a public health nurse and some kind of assessment done of the home situation.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, I hear really good reports about the Transcona area and the public health nurse and the system there so I am glad to hear that reinforced. I guess I want to stress or emphasize that this is additional public health nurses. This is not expecting the public health system and the number of nurses that are there today to expand the things they do. Although, in some instances if you have got a really good public health nurse, they may want, through the Winnipeg Hospital Authority--is it through the Winnipeg Hospital? Yes, it is the Winnipeg Community Authority in Winnipeg. They may want to utilize a really good person in a very significant way dealing with young people who need supports.
I think we want our best public health nurses involved in this process, but I want to stress that this is additional public health nurses in the system, and the dollars are there within the program to make that happen. So we will be seeing a greater assessment of risk and certainly a greater ability for us to determine who needs intensive home support and home visiting.
Ms. Cerilli: As I said, I was just following up on some of the issues that were raised earlier with the home visitors, but I want to go back to what we were talking about before I left. That was sort of the bigger picture in terms of the Children and Youth Secretariat and the priorities you are setting and funding.
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I am wanting some explanation of why you chose the priorities that you did and how that worked because I looked back to the working groups that were established, particularly the high-risk working group which had gang members, adolescent sex offenders, adolescent prostitutes and also the issues around children in care. Your government has lots of issues around children in care, but I do not think there has been any priority put on that area, and there does not seem to be any priority put on the issues around gangs and young offenders.
So I am wanting some explanation of why those were excluded, also how you chose the priorities that you did in the area of critical health incidents. That is where you are getting the priority on nutrition and on fetal alcohol, but there has been, I think, only two of seven that were identified as the priorities by that working group. So again, some explanation of why those were set as the priorities.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, I think as we compiled all of the information that was gained through the steering committee reports, and many of them on issues that are really significant issues and ones that we need to address and need to continue to think about, but I think we went back through the Child and Youth Secretariat to the research. The whole Fraser Mustard research and all of the indication that if we spend a dollar today at birth for a child, we are saving $7 later. If we can prevent one fetal alcohol birth from happening, we are saving $1.5 million over the life of that child in supports. So the research all told us that early intervention was significant and important and we needed to start to do it now.
The consultations with the community, yes, to deal with the issue of street gangs, youth prostitution, all of those things, and I guess the best thoughts around the issues of where we needed to start to reinvest dollars were in the areas of early intervention because if you get a child off to a healthy start to life, if you get the parent involved in a significant way in that child's life, down the road, and we are not saying tomorrow, but down the road we will see less gang activity, we will see less youth prostitution. All of those things, I mean, we have to start somewhere and we have to start now. So all of the initiatives that you are seeing right now are initiatives that are early intervention that will get children off to a healthy start to life, will work with families to try to make families and parents stronger and healthier.
So that is the first phase of our initiatives. That does not mean to say that we have not done things on the youth gang side. Some of the Urban Sports Camps announcements are dealing with youth gangs. There is still ongoing dialogue and discussion around the prostitution issue, but I do know that we are now able, through changes to our Child and Family Services Act, to put third-party sexual offenders on the Child Abuse Registry now.
We do have john school. We know that if there is a john or a pimp that is sexually exploiting a youth, we can charge them with child abuse. They can be charged and convicted of a sexual offence. They can be placed on the Child Abuse Registry. They can be required to go to john school. There are those kinds of initiatives that are underway.
That does not mean to say that we do not have to deal in some way with young people that have been sexually exploited and try to figure out how we can best support them. We are still in ongoing dialogue around the issue of juvenile prostitution, but there have been some things put into place at the other end. So the priority initiatives that we have undertaken through the Children and Youth Secretariat are trying to prevent those kinds of things from happening.
I was explaining to the member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk) just a few minutes ago that if we can get at the issues right on, up front, we are maybe not going to see the results or the full results of our activities until that child graduates from Grade 12 at the same rate as every child graduates from Grade 12. Some of this is long term, and we could wait another two or three years and concentrate at the far end. Heaven knows we are putting a lot of our money into services after the fact, when families have broken down, and there has been dysfunction and there has been abuse and neglect. Many of the symptoms that we are seeing in society are as a result of that.
So we could wait and continue to pour money in at that end, or we can start to put money in at the front end while still maintaining our services and enhancing, because we are putting more money into Child and Family every year, but we are now seeing significant positive results. So where we need to be concentrating our effort with new money is at the front end and continuing to fund the system that needs funding at the far end.
I did indicate, too, to the member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk) that in the past--and we can be as much at fault as other governments right across the country or governments in the past in Manitoba that continue--we do not anymore--but believe that we can just put money into our Child and Family Services system for both protection and prevention, and that we can expect the Child and Family Services system to be all things to all families. Reality is that they do have a mandate under the act for protection of children. They also have a mandate for prevention, but there is other prevention activity ongoing right throughout our communities. All of the money that we have put in to interventions through the Children and Youth Secretariat have been into community organizations.
I know for a fact, and if you talk to those that work in the Child and Family Services system, they will tell you that they are the most hated in the community, because when they knock on someone's door, those people think they are there to take their kids away. Sometimes it is very difficult to do the prevention and the protection.
So we need Child and Family Services partnering with other community organizations-- public health. I mean, the public health nurse--and I think my honourable friend would agree, there certainly was no concern when the public health nurse phoned and came and knocked on her door the day after she had a baby. I mean, it was a welcoming experience. Many families do not welcome our Child and Family Services workers into their homes because they do feel threatened, and they are afraid to admit that they need help as a family because they think their children may be taken away.
So there is a real need for our Child and Family Services agencies to partner with the community organizations, public health nurses, educators, early childhood educators, to try to ensure that we are all working toward the same end goal, and that is to keep kids out of the protection system and to work with families before they need our Child and Family Services system to pick up the pieces.
Mr. Chairperson: The hour being six o'clock, committee rise.