(Concurrent Sections)
CHILDREN AND YOUTH SECRETARIAT
When the committee last sat, it had been considering item 34.1. Children and Youth Secretariat (a) Salary and Employee Benefits on page 20 of the Estimates book. Shall this item pass?
Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): I just want to pick up where we left off yesterday. I think the minister had been giving some explanation to my question about the priorities that had been set for the Children and Youth Secretariat. The decision, as she was explaining it, was to focus on early years, early childhood, and I was asking about the other areas that had been identified by her working groups, those being youth gangs, prostitutes, juvenile prostitutes.
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Also, the care and protection committee had made a number of recommendations, and it is interesting that the member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale) is here right now, because, of course, this is an area that he has been asking the minister questions about in the Family Services Estimates and all the problems that are occurring with the high number of children in care in Manitoba.
It was initially the intention of the Children and Youth Secretariat to deal with gaps between departments and different agencies providing services for children and youth. Their initial mandate was to try and better co-ordinate services for youth, youth who are already in the system. I am wondering what the Youth Secretariat is doing, first of all, to address the needs of those children who are already in the system through Child and Family Services. That was one of the priority areas identified through the working group process.
Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson (Minister of Family Services): Mr. Chairperson, of course, this is a very timely topic as we go through a significantly high profile around the Child and Family Services agency in Winnipeg with the inquest that is ongoing right now. There has been lots of activity since a couple of years ago when the reason for this inquest, the death of a baby, took place. Although I cannot comment specifically on what is being said at the inquest right now or what our comments might be when we are called to that inquest in the fall of this year, I can indicate that there certainly are some issues that we have been discussing with the Winnipeg agency over the last couple of years.
The operational review was one of those things that both the agency and we agreed to, to try to determine what the flaws in the system were and to see how we could work together to better address them, and, of course, there have been recommendations as a result of that operational review, and there is a steering committee with the Winnipeg agency and my department to look at implementation of those recommendations and how we can better serve children.
One of the issues, of course, that I think that my honourable friend is interested in is the co-ordination of services and supports for those within the Child and Family Services system that presently exist. One of the significant undertakings or things that we have initiated, of course, is the closure of the Seven Oaks Youth Centre and the implementation of the Emergency Youth Crisis Stabilization system that has been put in place and is working extremely well.
Certainly the Children and Youth Secretariat was involved in the devolution of the Seven Oaks centre, the closure of the Seven Oaks centre, and the whole process of setting up the crisis stabilization system. I would like to spend a little bit of time just discussing exactly what that has done, how many referrals there have been and how we have been able to work with families to try to ensure that we go right into the home if there is a crisis occurring to try to work with the family to see whether there is the ability to keep that family together. If not, there is the ability then to move them into our Crisis Stabilization units, and there is some information I can get for my honourable friend on the numbers of children, number of referrals to that system that have occurred and what we have been able to do to resolve the problem.
So I want to indicate that the Children and Youth Secretariat was involved in that. Mental Health was involved because we needed the psychiatric swing beds available for those youth, and we do have those, and there is stable funding now through the Department of Health for those beds. I guess I do have the numbers here. Just a moment.
Okay, there is the youth emergency services, and this is our experience since January 15 of this year and up until April 30. There were 574 requests for service. Of that 574--and this is a central referral line to youth emergency services--121 cases were able to be resolved by telephone intervention. So that was someone on the other end of the line helping people find out where the supports were in the community and resolving the issues so that no other intervention at that time had to be taken. But in 453 of the cases, the mobile crisis teams which have been established under this process were dispatched and sent out. I guess, out the 453 cases where the crisis team went out, there were 365 different children involved. In 88 cases, the mobile crisis team went out more than once to serve the same children.
Out of those 453 cases that the mobile crisis team responded to, 122 of those families were served in-home with supports to prevent family breakup. Those who had to be referred to the Crisis Stabilization Unit were 54 admissions to MacDonald Youth Services boys stabilization unit and 89 admissions to the Marymound girls stabilization unit.
I think that we have had a significant amount of success in preventing families in crisis from having to utilize some sort of separation within those families, but we have been able to work with them in their homes and keep families together. In cases where there was no ability to do that, we do have the resources and the beds available to admit youth to those stabilization units and try to develop an individual case plan. So there has certainly been some success, and the Children and Youth Secretariat was involved in that, pulling the money together from different departments to ensure the success of this program.
I would hope my honourable friend would agree that this is much better than warehousing kids at Seven Oaks. But the issue, of course, around warehousing kids comes up when we look at the issue of hotel use, and any amount of hotel use is unacceptable. When we were made aware last year that the Winnipeg agency was using that kind of placement as a way of dealing with some of their issues, we did become very concerned and indicated to them that we wanted to work very closely and very co-operatively, that we needed to find an approach that we could both work together to try to ensure that hotel placement was not the option of choice for treating children and youth.
I do know that we had some success in the first few months of this year in ensuring that the number of children who were placed in hotels reduced significantly. The ideal number, of course, would be zero. I am not sure whether we are ready to be able to say that we can achieve zero, but I do know that there were nights within the months of April and May where the number of children in hotels was down to nine per night. It fluctuates on a day-to-day basis, and I do know that there are different reasons. I know that maybe on a Saturday night when a Child and Family Services worker is called because parents have left to go out for the evening and left their children alone and unsupervised that children are picked up. Very often, there is a need for a place for them to be for a short period of time until we determine whether, in fact, it was just a one-night circumstance and that it was safe to put the children back in that family and work with that family.
Ms. Cerilli: Mr. Chairperson, I just want to ask, on a point of order, if the minister would just answer the questions more succinctly, perhaps. I asked specifically what the Children and Youth Secretariat had done in the area of care and protection of children, kids in care. I think you answered that by describing the services provided through the transition of the Seven Oaks centre. With all due respect, I think now you are getting into other areas in a lot of detail.
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We do not have much more time for this committee, so I would just ask, with all due respect, that if you could answer the questions that I am raising quickly, and we will get on with it. There are a number of other programs in the Children and Youth Secretariat that I want to ask questions about.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, on the same point of order. I have to apologize if my honourable friend thinks I am taking too much time, but I do recall in her questions, the question about placement of children in hotels, being raised. I think very often there are many within our community who think there is a very simplistic approach to finding places and knowing where children are best served. So I thought that I should explain a little bit about the situation around hotels. But if my honourable friend would like to continue on and have me end my answer there, you know, I will have lots of opportunity to debate the issues around hotels, but I do know it was something that she did ask in her questions or made in her comments.
An Honourable Member: Yesterday?
Mrs. Mitchelson: No, just now. You talked about children in hotels.
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. The honourable member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) does not have a point of order. It is a dispute over the facts.
Ms. Cerilli: Getting back specifically then to the secretariat's initiative with the Seven Oaks centre, I guess, just to start off with, it seems like there has been an either/or decision made here. The centre has been closed, and maybe the minister can clarify for me with her staff the number of units there or beds that were available for youth at one time. But those have been closed, and now you have opted for this Emergency Crisis Stabilization unit which can work well, but from the community I have also heard that there is a need for a secure place where youth can go as a cooling-off period, as a sort of temporary shelter.
So I am wanting the minister to clarify for me if she does not think that is the case, that it is not an either/or here, that the Crisis Stabilization Service may be well and good, but there still is a need for a secure shelter for kids that are in crisis. At times they cannot go home, and I have run into this issue both in dealing with constituents as well as in dealing with some service providers. So I am wondering now if we can get some explanation of the number of beds that were closed, and if there has been any other increase in other places for that kind of secure supervised shelter for youth in crisis, or if as the minister has described for me, the referrals are to the existing services with Marymound or with MacDonald Youth Services.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, no, these were not the existing sources within Marymound and MacDonald Youth Services. These were dedicated new beds at both facilities, six to eight beds at Marymound for girls, six to eight beds through MacDonald Youth for boys, and four beds in the youth psychiatric facility at Health Sciences Centre. So those were the new beds that were created, so that there was proactive treatment for children, case planning and individualized work, rather than--so these in-house beds are replacement. But also besides that we have the mobile crisis teams that are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to deal with families, to work with families as a crisis occurs, hopefully preventing the kind--some of the kids that ended up in Seven Oaks because there was not that kind of service available for families in the past, or those that might have gone to Seven Oaks would now be going to the new beds at MacDonald Youth and Marymound.
Ms. Cerilli: And how many was that replacing at the youth centre? Previously, I recall, the number 34 is in my memory. I am not sure if that is correct.
Mrs. Mitchelson: I think there was accommodation for 32 beds, but the average annual use was 22 beds.
Ms. Cerilli: I guess that is what happens when you have emergencies though is that they are not always full but that sometimes there is a demand that is greater than what is available. That is the nature of dealing with kids in crisis.
So the minister has explained to me this new system that is in place, and I think that it is reasonable and it is a good idea to have a kind of intervention that will go into families' homes. I am wondering if these are mental health workers, or are they CFS staff, or is it a combination.
Mrs. Mitchelson: It is a multidisciplinary team, so it is mental health workers, social workers, psychologists that are part of the crisis team. So that is another area where there is some co-ordination where everyone who has some experience in dealing with different issues surrounding youth in crisis is involved in the treatment plan.
Ms. Cerilli: So the staffing at the team is how many staff then? Again, how does that compare with the staffing levels that were at the youth centre?
Mrs. Mitchelson: We have contracted with MacDonald Youth Services to run the program, so they do the crisis stabilization piece. We redirected all of the resources that we were spending at Seven Oaks Youth Centre to the new system.
Ms. Cerilli: Okay. So other than this initiative, what are the plans in the secretariat for other services co-ordinated for kids that are in care? What is the next step, either with research--is it consultation? Are there plans to implement some of the other recommendations that were in the working group report? If not this year, then you are looking down the road that there is a high need in this area? These, I think, are the kids and the families that often fall through the cracks. They go from one agency to the other, all the kinds of things that the Children and Youth Secretariat was going to try to address.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, I know the Children and Youth Secretariat has been working around the issue of training for FAS, for ADHD children. I know that there has been some ongoing dialogue and discussion around what the needs of foster parents are in respect to training around the issues of ADHD and FAS and that kind of activity.
I do want to indicate that the innovative and preventative child and family services piece of the Winnipeg Development Agreement is being co-ordinated and looked at through the Children and Youth Secretariat. There will probably be some announcements as early as next week around some of the initiatives that will be undertaken in that respect. I do know that in some of those announcements, there are partnerships with the Winnipeg Child and Family Services agency and other community groups to deal with the issues around prevention.
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So there will be some announcements upcoming, and we will continue to work on some of the issues. I do know that we indicated that the urban sports camps have been started, and some are up and running. The Department of Justice is now taking the lead. The Children and Youth Secretariat will be doing the evaluative piece on that, but that is one of the issues that will deal with youth gangs in the city of Winnipeg.
Ms. Cerilli: I want to also ask some questions, then, about the EarlyStart program. A budget of $525,000, and that is just for this year for that program--
An Honourable Member: Which one?
Ms. Cerilli: The EarlyStart program which, in your explanation yesterday, you said that it was going to be run out of daycares and a couple of the sites have already been selected, and there are going to be additional funded sites announced throughout the year.
I want to get some explanation of how this is going to work in terms of reaching children who are beyond the numbers that are in the child care centre itself. I mean, as I understand it, this program is not intended just for the children that are in the daycare centre where it is going to be run. So how are the other children going to be identified?
Mrs. Mitchelson: I know that, as we start with both BabyFirst and EarlyStart--BabyFirst is the one that deals with prenatal to aged two, that program. I indicated yesterday, as we identify each child as they leave the hospital, or before if we have the opportunity, and put significant supports in around them, we will certainly be ensuring that, if there is additional support that is required once the child reaches the age of two, they will be referred to an EarlyStart program.
I guess the issue around how child care centres will access other children in the community, we do know, and child care centres have indicated to us, that very often they understand the need in their community. There are many special social needs children in our daycare system, and what daycares are doing is developing community networks. When they identify families that need additional support right now--and I do know that there are many examples. The very first project that we started up, one of our very first announcements, was the one at Victor Mager School where the daycare centre is in the school. They also have a drop-in centre; they have literacy programs for adults. The community is extremely involved in that facility.
So it will be a matter of outreach by the daycares. They will have the ability to hire additional staff and home visitors who will go into homes and work directly with families and children, trying to ensure that some of the skills that they have as early childhood educators are passed on to parents who might need to understand how they can interact in a more significant way with their children.
So I know that we will be, sort of, watching every step, but it is based on the Perry preschool program that was started in the States and has been very successful. We are looking at the same kind of activity that happened there. I think there is much community support for it. I think we will have to, as we move along, ensure that we are accomplishing the objectives that we set out to accomplish.
Ms. Cerilli: Well, in answer to my question, it seems that the minister is saying that there is going to be a reliance on the sort of informal network that the daycare has established in the community. I am assuming that would mean that referrals would come from other agencies, if the daycare is in the school. Perhaps, from dealing with, then, older siblings, they would find out about two- to five-year-olds that would need support through the program or families with those aged children. Would Child and Family Services then be referring to this program? My focus here is looking at how all of these programs are going to interrelate and hang together. So my question is: how are children going to be brought to the attention of this program that are outside the enrollment of the child care centre?
Mrs. Mitchelson: I think there will be many referral points. That is why we have included and heightened the awareness within all of the professional community and the community organizations the implementation of EarlyStart. Through the BabyFirst program, if a mom is identified at the hospital or prenatally that she needs some support for her and that baby, if she has older siblings, if that woman already has older children, the BabyFirst program would be referring to EarlyStart for those older children. So, along with working with the newborn and the mom, EarlyStart could play a role for older siblings.
You may have children in the school system who teachers identify as having younger children in their families at home that could be referred to the EarlyStart program. So if there are other types of drop-in activities already happening within the community and workers in those facilities, it could be a public health nurse that has the call. It could be the Winnipeg Child and Family Services agency that sees the need for some sort of intervention and work within the family. That referral could be made to the EarlyStart program. So there will be referrals coming from all different areas.
The lead will be the child care facility that has the program, and the home visitors will be hired by that facility to go out into those homes and work with families. So I think the referrals will come from all areas and all other professions, those dealing with younger kids in the family, those dealing with older ones or those that have some association with the Child and Family Services system. Physicians, also, if they saw a family that was in need, could make that kind of referral, so the key of course is to ensure that everyone out there knows that these programs are available and monitor where the referrals are coming from. If we see that in one area, whether it be through the education system or the Child and Family Services system, that referrals are not coming, I think what we need to do is ensure that the awareness is created and the referral is encouraged.
Ms. Cerilli: So the minister is clarifying that definitely the intention of this program is to reach beyond the population of children just in the child care centre. It sounds that there will be some reliance on just an informal network to make those kinds of referrals, as well as some of the professional agencies.
Am I understanding it correctly then to think that the child care centre will become like a home base? There used to be successful parent-child centres that were funded that were a very nonthreatening sort of resource centre. I am wondering, one of the other things that we hear from child care providers is to sort of expand the options for parents just to bring children there for respite child care. Is that one of the things? What is going to be there to sort of draw in the parents and the children that are not part of the regular child care program?
I am also wanting you to let me know if you have already identified the additional sites that are going to be part of the program, and how you are identifying the child care centres that are going to be part of the EarlyStart program.
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Mrs. Mitchelson: We are working at identifying the sites, certainly looking at high-need areas within the city of Winnipeg where we know there are a significant number of low-income families, significantly high aboriginal populations, where there are a high number of subsidized spaces, child care spaces, where there are a high number of special social needs children already enrolled in the child care facilities. So we are looking at identifying those centres that are there, looking to see whether they are interested in partnering with us. We are in the process of identifying new sites right throughout the province.
We do know and I indicated yesterday that in the North we have been working with Frontier School Division, and because in some areas in the North there are not a lot of child care facilities, we are working specifically with Frontier School Division. There will be a little different model there, and it may be based out of schools. So we are trying to adapt the program and ensure that the whole province has access. If there are not formal child care structures, it might be family daycare homes. If there are not child care facilities, it might be through the school system.
We do know that Frontier School Division is very interested, and we are working with them around a little bit of a different model. Same focus on what we want to accomplish, but it may have to be run in a little different manner.
Ms. Cerilli: I think the other day you mentioned a number that were going to be outside the city of Winnipeg. The amount that you have budgeted in the information you gave me yesterday was $525,000. That is just for this upcoming year, but what is that money actually going to go to? Is it going to go to staff? These home visitors, are they going to be paid?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, the $525,000 is predominantly for the hiring of home visitors, and there is a little bit of training dollars included in that figure, too.
An Honourable Member: So that is just for this year.
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. I have been watching this very carefully, and this is not a conversation between the critic and the minister. This is the process of Estimates, and I would remind all members of the committee that any comments would be made through the Chair.
Ms. Cerilli: Perhaps you can watch to see when we are ready to speak.
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please.
Ms. Cerilli: Here we go. Mr. Chairperson, Sir, I am interested to hear that it is going to work with the Frontier School Division, and that is going to be primarily in the North. Why are you not working more with schools in the city of Winnipeg for this program if the intention is to reach out to children who are outside the child care centres?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, the program is targeted to those aged two to five to get them ready to enter school, both more ready to learn and socially adapted to learn at school. We do know that early childhood educators, through our child care system, have the skills and the tools that are needed to work with children at that age. I have had many discussions with early childhood educators and certainly believe that they have the qualities and the skills. They also have expressed concern in the past that they have been dealing with kids sometimes in isolation of families, and they would like to play a greater role in the community and working with families.
So we thought it was a good place to start and that they would certainly be able to find mentors right within their community that they could hire to go visit with families, work with parents. So this is making more of a connection between the parents and the child care facility and ensuring that parents are involved.
Ms. Cerilli: Okay, I think I will ask some questions now about the FAST program. That is the school initiative for young people aged four to nine. I guess this is one of the examples of why we are concerned that a lot of the initiatives from the secretariat are pilot projects. This one definitely is, you know, targeted for a four-year period, 132 families, you have referenced in the notes you have provided. I would think that this program is going to work. Again, it seems like you are going to target it to areas, I am assuming, similarly to the way you are going to target the other program that we were just discussing.
My concern is that some of these programs, I think, would benefit children who are high risk, who we would find in all areas of the city and of the province. So I guess what I am looking for is a little bit more of an explanation about this program of the kind of intervention that is going to occur, and why it is that you have selected to target it in this way or to conduct a program in this way for over a four-year period.
Mrs. Mitchelson: This is a program that has been up and running a little longer than the ones that we have just announced. I think I have made it fairly clear over the last number of years that I have been the Minister of Family Services that governments, I guess of all political stripes right across the country, are looking at outcomes and measurements on how successful we are being in the programs that we start and we implement. In the past, I know when resources were increasing in significant ways year after year, governments just kept adding new programs onto old without evaluating, without knowing whether the programs were having any positive impact or what the outcomes were. We ended up with program on top of program, and nobody knew whether they were doing anything or not or we were seeing healthier families and children as a result.
So every government now is looking at measuring outcomes and evaluating programs and seeing whether they are, indeed, having a positive impact. So when you hear the word "pilot project," very often our pilot projects are based on one site being a demonstration site and evaluation site and trying to ensure that as we move through the evaluation of the program, if parts of it are working and parts are not, we need to revamp the program a little bit to get the maximum effect and impact for families. So the FAST program is a pilot in a sense where we started the program and a four-year evaluative process, all the initial evaluations are saying that it has been quite a successful program. I will certainly indicate that if the results are positive at the end of the evaluative term, that program will continue. We are looking right now at how we might look at some sort of a universal model that could be expanded right throughout the province.
Ms. Cerilli: One of the other questions I have, both for this program as well as the Early Literacy Program, I am looking for in on here. That is the way the minister referenced it in her opening statement, but I am wondering if there is a different name for it based on the notes you gave me the other day.
Anyway, I am wondering if either of these two programs will have a speech and language component. We have heard about the long waiting list for speech and language therapy both for preschool as well as school age. I know that there is one pilot project going on in rural Manitoba. I think it is somewhere out in southwestern Manitoba that is looking at a more comprehensive approach to intervening with language-delayed and language problems in children. I am wondering if either of these two programs have a component for speech and language.
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Mrs. Mitchelson: The Early Literacy Program, the $2.7 million that is available for Early Literacy, is in the Department of Education. That is an Education departmental program, and, yes, it does have a speech and language component to it. I think the other one that my honourable friend mentioned, in the Brandon area was it, is funded by the Department of Health and does have a speech and language component.
Ms. Cerilli: So what is the name of this Early Literacy project based on the notes that you gave me the other day? Where am I going to find this one? They all have such nice names.
Mrs. Mitchelson: It is in the Minister of Education's budget. I think there is a budget line that says Early Literacy Program in the K-S4 side of the Department of Education.
Ms. Cerilli: So it is not on the list that you gave me the other day.
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. I want to remind all members of the committee that the Chair is here for remarks to be made through the Chair, and I am failing to hear that. I would insist that all honourable members follow the process that is before this committee.
Ms. Cerilli: Just to clarify, Mr. Chairperson, you are requesting that I refer to you at the beginning of each of my questions? Is that what you are concerned about?
Mr. Chairperson: All honourable members, for the benefit of the committee, all members who address anybody make their remarks through the Chair.
Ms. Cerilli: I am wanting the minister to clarify, Mr. Chairperson, if the Early Literacy Program is listed in the notes that she provided for me the other day.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, there were two different sets of information that I gave to my honourable friend. One was the Children and Youth Secretariat, Projects and Partnerships. This is not a partnership between government departments. It is a Department of Education initiative and it is an Early Literacy Program. It is not in the Children and Youth Secretariat's Projects and Partnerships. It is a Department of Education initiative, but when we talk about 1998-99 initiatives for children, the Literacy Program in Education is a new program that benefits children. So it is not a Children and Youth Secretariat initiative, but it is an initiative for children that the Department of Education is doing.
Ms. Cerilli: Mr. Chairperson, I thank the minister for that clarification. Right now, I would like to ask the minister more questions about the nutrition strategy. This one is getting one of the largest funding allocations. It was a major recommendation in the Postl Report. It has been identified in the health incidents working group, and it has $2.1 million. I would like for the minister to give me a little bit more detail on this program, how it is going to be implemented, the different locations in the community, how those are going to be selected, and how it is going to be targeted.
Mrs. Mitchelson: I would love to be able to give more detail. Right at this point in time we have announced that the final details around the program are just being pulled together and it will be announced, so we have not announced. We have announced that we have put the money in. Exactly how it is going to be spent has not been announced yet, but that will be announced shortly.
Ms. Cerilli: I think this one was also mentioned in the budget or the throne speech. In the budget, the minister has clarified for me. So I am wondering if then we could clarify: this is a funding that has come from the Department of Health, I think is one of the departments, or which departments? Will the program be run at all through the schools in the province?
Mrs. Mitchelson: No, it is part of the reinvestment under the National Child Benefit. It is in the budget of the Department of Family Services, and the details of that will be announced fairly soon.
Ms. Cerilli: The minister seems to be reluctant to give me more details on this initiative because she does not want to spoil her press release or her press announcement. You know, these are the Estimates. This is the time when she is accountable for the money that has been allocated in this budget year. I would like her to clarify for me if that is the reason that she is hesitant to give me more details or if there is some other reason why she does not want to explain, as we have just gone through some of these other programs, a little more about this nutrition initiative, which has a large budget allocation.
I am assuming that $2.1 million is for this year. It is already going on to July. So has any of that money already been expended in start-up, or is all that money going to be expended this year, and a little bit more detail about how that is going to be done.
Mrs. Mitchelson: The reason I have been able to give so much detail on the other programs is that they have been announced and this one has not been announced as yet. We are putting the final touches on the program.
I want to remind my honourable friend that the National Child Benefit does not kick in until July of 1998. It starts in July, and we are only receiving partial year funding, so we are not behind schedule as such in announcing these programs and initiatives, but the nutrition strategy will be announced, and there is a significant amount of money in it. I am not, at this time, able to give the details around that program.
Ms. Cerilli: Do you have a date when you are planning to announce the nutrition programs?
Mrs. Mitchelson: Soon.
Ms. Cerilli: I think that we could talk for a long time about all of these needs related to children and youth in Manitoba, that we could go into more detail, hopefully, in a lot of other of these projects, but, given the lack of time left in the Estimates, I think I am going to have to close now. Perhaps we will get to ask some more questions in concurrence.
I am just looking quickly through my notes to see if there is anything that I had identified that I really wanted to ask for the minister's answer to, but I will just close by saying that, while I think that some of the initiatives that the secretariat is co-ordinating and has undertaken are positive and are a good approach, I think that there still are a lot of outstanding concerns, because, at this time last year, there was about half a million dollars. This year there is just over $3 million that the secretariat has available to it.
At the same time, this government has been making very large cuts into programs for children and youth that are having an impact. So while the Children and Youth Secretariat is wanting to go ahead with some positive ventures in some new directions, the large government programs that this minister as well as other ministers are responsible for have been cut back, whether it in the past has been in child care, whether it has been in allocations for foster families, whether it has been in allocations for social allowance, a number of programs in Education, particularly in a lot of categories for special needs, in the area of Housing, where they cut back the shelter allowance programs for low-income families.
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I would say that in pretty much every department. In Health, there are a number of areas where there has not been the investment that is required or there have been cuts in the large, broad programs of this government, and now the secretariat seems to sort of be trying to fill in with some new initiatives that are not going to add up to the amount that has been eliminated in children and youth services over the tenure of this government.
I think that is probably the main concern that I have had about what has been happening with this government in the Children and Youth Secretariat. It does have some positive initiatives, but they are so much smaller in scale compared to the large government cutbacks and redirection that has occurred over the last 10 years of this government.
So very often money gets poured into the system, and I am not about to get into a debate or an argument about cuts because I do know that significantly millions and millions of new dollars into our child welfare system is certainly not a cut. We have always provided that kind of support. The issue is that much of the money that goes into Child and Family is after the fact, and unless we start to put money in at the front end, we are not going to see any improvement in our Child and Family Services system.
It is the first time ever that departments have really come together, put their heads together collectively around the table and developed programs that reduce overlap and duplication and see a co-operative approach. I also have to indicate, too, that we are very much more engaging families and communities in finding the solutions, and I think we have seen many, many times that community organizations, people who live in neighbourhoods and work in neighbourhoods very often have some of the answers that we have never given them credit for before. We are engaged in a very significant way in trying to work with communities, building upon programs that already exist and ensuring that they can deal with the issues right in their own neighbourhoods. I find from time to time that families are much more comfortable when they know that someone who has been there, done that and turned their lives around can offer real help and real solutions to individuals and families and to children. So I am encouraged.
I want to say thanks to the staff of the Children and Youth Secretariat for the hard work that they do and for their connection to community. So very often government departments do not have the kind of relationship with community that needs to be developed. I have said many times and I will say it again on the record that governments cannot do it alone, and nobody wants governments to do it in isolation of what people out there know can work. Governments do not always have the answers. What government is there for is to facilitate the kind of co-ordination that happens when you really sit down and talk to people, understand what the issues are, and help them to develop the solutions that they believe can fix and build stronger communities and strengthen families. I think that is what we have really tried to do.
It took a little time for the Children and Youth Secretariat to get up and running, but I think we have made a very significant start in trying to deal with some of the priority areas that were identified by the community. We will continue to work, recognizing and realizing that we have to get at the issues before they become a problem or families become dysfunctional. That is the challenge for all of us.
I said earlier in my opening statements and I will say again, we do not want to see a child on someone's caseload in the child welfare system. We want to see a healthier family up front so they do not need the kinds of services and support that families have needed in the past, that children have needed in the past from our child welfare system. So everything that we are doing is focusing on trying to ensure that we build stronger communities and strengthen families in those communities. We know that the communities have the solutions to those. We will facilitate that community consultative process, and we will ensure that the financial resources are available when communities come up with the right solutions for them.
So thanks, Mr. Chairperson, and with that I will end my comments.
Mr. Chairperson: 34.1. Children and Youth Secretariat (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $879,300--pass; (b) Other Expenditures $269,100--pass; (c) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($722,100)--pass.
Resolution 34.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $426,300 for the Children and Youth Secretariat, Children and Youth Secretariat, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
34.2. ChildrenFirst Initiatives (a) ChildrenFirst Initiatives $3,320,000--pass; (b) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($950,000)--pass.
Resolution 34.2: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $2,370,000 for Children and Youth Secretariat, ChildrenFirst Initiatives, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
This now concludes the Estimates of the Children and Youth Secretariat.