The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Gerry McAlpine): Good afternoon. Would the Committee of Supply please come to order. This section of the Committee of Supply has been dealing with the Estimates for Children and Youth Secretariat.

Would the minister's staff, if they are available, please enter the Chamber.

We are on Resolution 34.1 Children and Youth Secretariat (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $434,400.

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Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): I will just give the staff a second to take their seat and catch their breath. I want to continue discussing the issue of staffing and funding in the Youth Secretariat. We just started to get into that I believe last week, and I want to continue on. I appreciate that the booklet that is prepared for the Estimates includes the names of the staff that are working in the secretariat and the different departments that they are liaising with, but I still want to clarify in the Estimates the amount of $434,400 that is under Salaries and Employee Benefits, and I just wanted to clarify which of the staff that is paying for.

I think this was what we were discussing when we broke last week. So whenever the minister is ready, if you can answer that question.

Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson (Minister of Family Services): Mr. Chairperson, I will try to clarify it. The staff salary for the CEO of the Children and Youth Secretariat, if you look at the printed Estimates, Supplementary Estimates, right on the very last page, second last page, it has Reconciliation Statement. This is in the Supplement. That is it. Okay, last page, second last page at the bottom. It says Reconciliation Statement.

What happened in the past was all of the staff years and because the former ADM of the Children and Youth Secretariat came from the Department of Health, his salary was paid for through Health. The money was--I guess all of the staff salaries were paid for and the costs were shared with all departments. What we have done this year, for the first time, is put the staff year and the salary of the CEO into the secretariat. That is the only salary that is in the secretariat's budget line.

The $434,000 that you see further up in the Supplement relates to the staff salaries that are still paid for in departments for--am I making sense? If you look at the org chart, the position in Family Services, Justice, Education, Health, and Culture, Heritage and Citizenship, okay? Those are the five positions. They are still paid for from the department, but that is a compilation of those departments, and it also includes the support staff for the CEO, okay? Have you got that? The five departments and the support staff for the CEO, those salaries are included there.

Housing and Northern and Native Affairs have just been added, and their salaries are not included in that amount yet. It will be in next year's budget because they are permanent now, partners in the secretariat.

The three boxes underneath--Family Services-related projects, Education-related projects and Health-related projects--are positions that are not included in that $434,000, but they are seconded staff that would be paid for by the respective departments for project-specific initiatives. Those people and those departments will change from time to time. If the secretary is placing a focus on housing, for instance, mid-year, and a project from Education is completed, you may see staff from Housing being seconded to the secretariat paid for by Housing to look at project-specific initiatives if Education is finished, but from time to time you will see different people from different departments moving into the secretariat based on where the priority projects are happening. Also, we do have the names included from the different departments of the people who are seconded right now, but from time to time those people will change. This is not sort of a permanent thing and that is why the positions and the salary dollars are left in the departments, because there might be a different salary depending on the individual and the kind of classification they have, what the salary dollar will be. Am I making sense?

Ms. Cerilli: Yes, I am understanding what you are saying. To clarify then, the CEO is not paid for from that budget line for salaries and benefits. Where does it show the salary for the CEO?

Mrs. Mitchelson: I think if I can understand this, next year it will be very clearly spelled out in the Estimates that the CEO's position for the Children and Youth Secretariat will be a staff position paid for through secretariat-dollar allocation. It is reconciled this year because it is still this year recoverable from the Department of Health. Next year, it will show up. I guess the decision was made that the CEO will be the one stable position in the Children and Youth Secretariat, but every other position will be secondable, transferable and people will move in and out, but there will be one stable person and that will be the CEO, the head of the secretariat.

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Ms. Cerilli: Further then, the staff who are working underneath on the special projects, particularly the ones who are coming from the Department of Health and the Department of Education, because as I understand it the person who is being paid through Family Services was not previously a provincial government employee but the other two are. Am I understanding that correctly or are those other two seconded, Roberta Vyse and Elizabeth Moore, also from outside the civil service? If so, I have noted here from the other day you said that those were staff years that were added. Can you tell me what program in those departments, in Education and in Health, they have come from?

Mrs. Mitchelson: Yes, Dorothy Dudek has been seconded, and we will have a contractual arrangement with the Manitoba Child Care Association for a year for her. Roberta Vyse has been seconded by Education from the River East School Division, so we are paying River East School Division her salary while she--and she was doing other projects in the Department of Education, and she is working on projects now out of the Secretariat. Elizabeth Moore is a staff position from the Department of Health, and that is to co-ordinate the management of the nutrition program that will be announced this fiscal year.

From time to time, there will be people that will come from the departments with certain sets of skills to either develop or help deliver or manage a program. From time to time, there will be people that will be seconded from outside of government to come in and work, and I think it just all depends on what the project is, and where we think we can get the right skills to work on that project from. So they will from time to time, whether they are a staffperson from the Department of Health or whether they are a seconded person, the respective department will pay.

The Department of Health is paying for the nutrition project. The Department of Education is paying for the education-related projects. The Department of Family Services is paying the salaries. The salaries paid to those people will come directly from the departments, whether they are seconded from the outside or staff from the inside.

Ms. Cerilli: Mr. Chairperson, I just wanted to let you know that I believe that the conversation from the ministers behind, on the second bench, is being picked up in the microphone, and I am having a difficult time hearing.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. McAlpine): Order, please. I would like to remind all honourable members that we are in the process of Estimates. It would be appreciated if there was any discussion beyond this Estimates process that it will be done--

An Honourable Member: Bring the hammer down.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. McAlpine): You might say that, Mr. Minister.

Ms. Cerilli: I appreciate it. I am wanting to clarify, then, the process for hiring those individuals, since they are secondments. Are they being bulletined through the civil service, or because they are secondments and are being paid by those departments, are they just handpicked from certain agencies or those departments? What is the process for hiring them? I am also interested in seeing where the job descriptions are available and if I could get the job descriptions?

Mrs. Mitchelson: At the present time, and I am not sure whether there ever will be a specific job description for anyone that comes in to the Secretariat, and I guess part of the problem or part of the issue around that is we are breaking new ground with intersectoral co-operation. Very often, even if a person is--I look at a person like Dorothy Dudek, who might come from outside but is paid for by the Department of Family Services, and probably it makes some sense because she has child care experience and expertise.

Some of the early intervention projects that she will be working on will certainly have a health component and an education component, as well as Family Services, and it might bring Housing in and certainly Native Affairs into the piece, so to say that there is a specific job description, I guess, is pretty difficult at this point in time. I believe that she will be facilitating community co-operation and co-ordination with the departments within government that will need to have some input and possibly some dollars redirected, and she will be sort of in charge of working with the secretariat to ensure that we get the projects up and running and they are successful.

As I said, it is groundbreaking and it is new. It is new for government, and I am not sure that any one job description--and as I said, it is only for a year for her at this point in time, so I guess at the end of the year, I would hope that maybe by next year at this time as we get into Estimates my honourable friend could hold us accountable for the success that we have had in utilizing that person and that position to do the job that needs to be done, and that is to get programs and projects up and running in a new way to deliver services to children and families.

I guess rather than having a specific description of what a person should do, they have got to come in, they have got to have some leadership capability, they have got to have the ability to bring people together around the table and get the job done. The accountability will be after the fact when projects are up and running and successful.

Ms. Cerilli: That was a two-part question, so I was just waiting for the minister to answer the other part of the question, which was about the process for finding these people and bringing them into the positions in the new secretariat.

Mrs. Mitchelson: The process for the people in the first set of boxes is, I mean, we are wanting an integrated approach and there will be on a regular basis an individual from all of these departments participating in the secretariat but, as I said, it is not for a set period of time. Once they come into the secretariat, they are not there forever. They may come and go based on the department's assessment, the department and the minister and the secretariat all sort of discussing what kinds of skills are needed at any point in time to do the work that needs to be done. So in those first sets of boxes there will always be someone and the staff dollars and resources for someone from those areas, although the people will change.

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So it is a matter of discussion, of dialogue, trying to get a mix of people with different skill sets. Some may have some ability to research and collect data. Others may have more project-specific skills. Others may have management skills, and I guess we need a mix of all of those people with different skill sets. When someone changes in one department we get someone with a different skill set, we might want to look at changing someone in another department. So it will be flexible.

Then, when we get down to the second three boxes, as far as there is not a bulletin process, I personally approached Dorothy Dudek. We have been doing some work with the Child Care Association around the fact-finding mission. We have had lots of discussions. I meet with her on a regular basis. I think she is very much in touch with the community, understands the issues, has been very involved in lots of dialogue and I think brings some great expertise and organizational ability to the process. So I personally approached her and asked whether she would be willing to talk to someone in the secretariat to see whether there was a role that she could play in helping us to co-ordinate and move forward around a bit of a new vision for early intervention. So in her discussions with the secretariat, she was prepared to accept a one-year secondment after discussion with her organization. I want to indicate to you that I want to see more of that. I think that we want to be able to pick those people who we believe bring expertise to the table.

So, as we move on different projects, there are many community people out there that I believe genuinely want to see the lives of families and children improved and have some wonderful suggestions on what we need to do. As well as breaking down barriers within government departments, we need to break down barriers sometimes within the community and get the community all working together. When you have that kind of facilitator and someone with that expertise, I think we want to approach them and as quickly as possible get them working with us to see what changes we can make. So that was how that position happened.

I cannot speak as much for the other two departments in detail, but I can indicate to you that Roberta Vyse was not just seconded to come to the secretariat. She was seconded by the Department of Education because of expertise that she had, and she became a valuable asset to some of the work of the secretariat. So she was, in discussion with department, deemed appropriate to move into the secretariat to work on some of the issues around education.

In the Health-related projects, the nutrition program was a program that was announced in the throne speech. There is money in the budget this year, and I think Elizabeth Moore was the kind of person that was deemed to be able to manage the program and the process to get a nutrition program up and running. It will be different in every instance and I suppose, as I said earlier, the accountability will have to be there after we have had experience for a year and are able to talk about the successes, or I suppose the failures if that happens, but we will be able to be held accountable anyway at the end of the year for the kind of work these people have done.

There was a couple of things that I undertook to provide for my honourable friend last week when we were in Estimates. The one paper I would like to provide for her is the Baby Think It Over program, the students' handbook that I would like to share.

Also, Mr. Chairperson, if I might, I put some incorrect information on the record. I want to clarify it and make sure that the right information is on the record, and it is around the Baby Think It Over program. My honourable friend had asked how many dolls we had purchased, at what cost, how many students that was to service, and I think what schools were involved. I was way off with the number of dolls. The number of dolls is 27, not 300. They are a cost of $400 each so the total cost is around $10,884. I see it here. The program will be delivered within the Department of Education curriculum and the schools that we have looked at. There is, I guess, one school in Thompson right now that is using the doll, but they have looked at high-risk need areas, and the individual schools that we have been working with are Lord Selkirk regional secondary school, Daniel McIntyre High School, St. John's High School, Sisler High School and Tec Voc. Those schools are committed to delivering the program. There is still an issue around the school board approval of that program, and so we have the schools that have bought in and I guess it is important that we co-opt the school divisions into believing that this is a positive program.

We are looking to the six aboriginal communities outside of Winnipeg that the Metis Federation, the Metis Women and the secretariat are going out to visit. The proposed number of people or students that would be served in a year is 750. I think I may have put a different number on the record last week. So I wanted to clarify the record and apologize to my honourable friend for the incorrect information.

(Mr. Mervin Tweed, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

Ms. Cerilli: I thank the minister for correcting the record. I will get back to the whole issue of teen pregnancy and Baby Think It Over when we get into dealing with the ChildrenFirst report, but I want to stick with asking some more questions about the department or the secretariat's staffing and budget. We had been talking about the process for the staff that are seconded to work for the secretariat being hired or being placed there, and it seems like from what the minister has said with her handpicking the person that is working through the department that she is responsible for, Family Services, it must then work differently for the other departments where I do not believe she would be able to handpick the person. So I am wondering how in those cases it works.

Is it that the Youth Secretariat approaches the department, for example, Education, says we need someone with such and such type of skills; who in your department could perform this work? Is it then up to the department to pick the person because what I am interested in finding out is what type of positions, programs these people have come from. That was my initial question. With either the people who, as the minister had said, are in the permanent positions where I understand the people will change in Education, Health, Justice, et cetera, if those people--you know, I am interested in finding out where those people from each of those departments, the kind of work they were doing and, as well, are the ones that are on the projects, the specific projects. Particularly then with Elizabeth Moore from Health, what type of program in the Department of Health has she come from--if the minister could provide that information for me.

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The other thing is the minister said that there is no job description, but at least there has to be a contract that was signed with the person that is being brought in. So the minister has said, for example, that Family Services paid one that they are to facilitate the co-operation with the community and get the projects off the ground, I guess, related to early childhood, if that is what their contract indicates. So again it is sort of a two-part question here. I will await the minister's answer.

Mrs. Mitchelson: I will try to answer. It is difficult sometimes when I sort of have two questions, because sometimes I get rambling on trying to answer the first one and forget about the second. Anyway, let me try. You will remind me, I know.

The first question was: How are people sort of picked from the department? Does the department pick them or does the secretariat pick them? I think it is a combination of both. The secretariat is an extension of departments. It is a co-ordinated approach of trying to break down some barriers within departments and have departments working together.

The secretariat would meet with departments. They meet regularly with departments from time to time and talk about the skills sense that might be required or the kind of person they might need to look at the jobs. When my honourable friend looks back to how the secretariats evolved, it started off as a new entity. There was a lot of research, a lot of information and data gathered to sort of figure out where we are at today and why we are in the circumstances we are in today. There were the steering committees, that was community input into priority areas that had been identified based on some of the data and the information that we had. Then there was the compilation of those steering committees' reports into strategic areas of action that has now led us to some of the things that we will be announcing in the very near future around nutrition, around early intervention, around adolescence and pregnancy, those kinds of issues.

You will have to forgive me, my head is full with a cold and maybe I was rambling a little bit, and I lost it--

An Honourable Member: No, I was following it.

Mrs. Mitchelson: Were you?

Anyway it is the secretariat, which is an extension of all of the departments. There is a facilitator of co-ordination who will look for skills that complement each other in staff. I know that we have had a very good staffperson in Neil Butchard from the Department of Education. He came for a certain period of time. His skills were still required, and he has been extended and that kind of thing. So we have that because the work that he was doing was so very important. It was not finished at the time of his secondment; he has been extended for additional periods of time to continue his work.

We have a person like Leanne Boyd who has been with the secretariat right from the beginning from the Department of Health. She has lent her expertise to, you know, the process and has done an excellent job. Dale Brownlee from my office was not there initially, has just come recently. So we had to look. While we were looking for someone from Family Services, there had to be a negotiation or an interaction process that looked for the kinds of skills that Dale Brownlee could bring to the table. So those are the kinds of things that take place. It is interactive and it is both sides.

It has to be a co-operative approach, and unless we have got co-operation between departments and the secretariat, we are not going to see positive things happen. It is a process and, no, I certainly would not be approaching absolutely everyone. I identified in Dorothy Dudek a very strong community person that could be a real asset. That certainly, I think, has been a very positive move, and I think we will see some positive results from that.

If in fact the Department of Education feels that they need a strong lead person from the community, I think that would be a process of negotiation; the Minister of Education, the secretariat, I might be involved in that. I am the lead minister, but I do not make all the decisions. Somebody has to respond and answer for the general working of the secretariat, but I cannot be responsible for talking in detail about the strengths and the skills of someone in Health that is an integral part of the process or the strength or the skills. I cannot make the decisions on who gets seconded from the Department of Health or the Department of Education. I am the spokesperson for ensuring that the co-ordination of activities is there so that government departments are working together in community as a part of that process.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): The honourable member for Radisson, on a point of order.

Ms. Cerilli: I just want to clarify from the minister. I think you have answered that question. I am going to move on. If what you are saying is, we can ask some of the questions about where those staff have come from from each of those seven departments in those Estimates, I would like to move on, okay?

Mrs. Mitchelson: Agreed.

Ms. Cerilli: One of the other things that I wanted to clarify is the $500,000 that is allocated under the ChildrenFirst fund. I had asked previously about the process for accessing that money, and it seems now that that is not necessarily a grant that agencies can apply to, but it seems like the secretariat is going to be very involved in identifying projects and then seeking out partners in the community. So it is going to be fairly much in the hands of the secretariat and the minister to sort of decide how that $500,000 is going to be expended. Is that correct?

Mrs. Mitchelson: Certainly the secretariat will be an integral part, because the whole objective of having a secretariat is to ensure that projects and programs are co-ordinated, not only between government departments but in the community. I mean, we have already seen partners like CIDA and the chamber that have come forward with, you know, brought in a guest speaker from the States to talk about the Perry Preschool Program and some of the data that has been collected that speaks to how positive that kind of a program could be. They obviously have an interest. The Manitoba chamber is there.

One of the ultimate goals or objectives is to get also--[interjection]

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): Order, please.

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Mrs. Mitchelson: Well, and the process will be then if, in fact, CIDA believes that they can be a partner, if the Chamber of Commerce can be a partner, if we get community organizations and private sector and government all working together, obviously we are all going to benefit. So I look to the Families and Schools Together project that we just approved and are funding through co-ordination of dollars in government departments, and we have the Family Centre of Winnipeg who came forward with a proposal--

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): The honourable member for Radisson, is this a point of order?

Ms. Cerilli: This is a point of clarification. I do not mean to be disrespectful, but I have asked a question about process and the minister is just listing a number of the agencies that they are working with. What I am trying to identify on behalf of the number of agencies that I know are approaching the secretariat, who would like to be partners, is they want to understand how this works. They want to understand how do they get to be one of the agencies that are going to be selected to benefit from working with some of the program money that is available and having their agency involved in this. That is what I am trying to clarify, not the number of agencies that are already working, but how the new agencies that want to be involved are going to be able to be selected or if there is some kind of process that they go through. Is it just the merits of the ideas that they may bring, and it is the staff in the secretariat or, perhaps, the Social Services Committee of cabinet that selects? How does this work?

Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, ultimately, there will have to be a selection process by government when any project is approved. I guess some of the criteria, if you might say, and there is nothing written down and there is not a broad application process that is going to take place, there will be selected projects based on--and I mean the secretariat has met with many, many organizations. We have worked with many. There are some that have come forward as partners, and one of the things I want to tell my honourable friend is we need community partnership in order for these projects to take place.

If you have one organization out there that is saying, we want to do this, we do not have any partners, and we do not have any other community buy in, we are probably not likely going to see projects funded in that respect. They have to be intersectoral. They have to be able to benefit the high-risk areas that we have identified in our documents. We have to be able to measure outcomes. We have to have community service organizations, private sector, other funder involvement. They need to be very co-ordinated. There needs to be a community buying in. As a result, as people come forward, many, many people phone the secretariat and say, we have an idea, we have a suggestion. We meet with them. We might say to them this sounds like a really good idea, let us develop it a little further, let us see whether there can be partnerships developed, and let us see who else in the community is interested in buying into this project. Let us see whether there are government departments that want to contribute. Let us see if there is another funder that wants to contribute.

I see my honourable friend getting a little agitated. I want to say that there is no application process. The people that come forward with suggestions or ideas on what might be a good project, or a good program, will be worked with. If we know that there is community buy-in and if it meets the criteria for an intersectoral approach, then we will consider funding it. We have to look at the cost of the program. We have to look at whether $50,000 or $100,000 from the secretariat and another $200,000 from the Department of Health and $100,000 from the Department of Family Services, along with maybe $100,000 from the Winnipeg Foundation, maybe $100,000 from the private sector add up to a half-a-million-dollar project that we believe could impact or change the lives of high-risk children or families out in our community, and then we would go with that. But there have to be partners; there has to be funding committed by partners. So we are anticipating that the dollars in the secretariat will lever dollars from other sources. That is how we will develop the projects, and that is how we will work.

We would want--as we have in the Baby Think It Over program, we have the teachers, the home economists, we have the school divisions, we have my department, which believes some education for teenagers is critical in trying to delay or prevent pregnancy, is important. So, when you have got that kind of intersectoral buy-in then we can make it happen. That was not by an application process; that was from a project coming forward and our believing that it was the right thing to do.

Ms. Cerilli: I guess that I do have some concerns about that type of approach, but I am going to move on. I am going to now I think try to start getting into the details of some of the reports, but I am wondering if the minister can tell me, because there was a lot of talk before about the gaps in the system for kids that are high need, high system use, high risk, and in all of the materials that have been produced by the secretariat, has there been something to identify those gaps? I know there is one example that has been used a lot with schools for example not knowing when young people who are on probation--as part of their probation they have been told they have to go to school and have 100 percent attendance, and the school never knows that. That has been a problem. So Corrections, there has to be--there is a gap between the Youth Corrections staff and the schools. That is an example.

There has been a gap identified in terms of the technology requirements for kids in the school system. Are there other specific issues like that that have been identified by the secretariat? I do not want the minister to list them all now, because we only have a half hour more today, but I want her to do is either direct me to the material that has been provided or commit to providing me with that information. I can see they are nodding, so I guess you are saying that there are gaps that have specifically been identified.

Mrs. Mitchelson: I will answer just briefly around a couple of areas, and then we can try to get into more detail around that. That is exactly what some of the protocols for the information sharing are all about, so that Probations and the school system are all in sync and information is shared on a timely basis when it is appropriate so that the case plan or the treatment plan for that child is complete. Very often if someone was on probation they might or could conceivably be involved in the Child and Family Services system. So we need to have a case plan developed around the best information we have on how to treat that individual, and that information has to be shared among different disciplines, so that is what some of the protocol will be about. We talked about that in detail, so I will not get into that anymore.

But the other area to where we have really identified, and it has to work in a couple of areas--it is within our school system--and that is dealing with FAS/FAE children. But the other side of the coin is, how do we prevent moms from delivering FAS/FAE children? We are dealing with it after the fact. How do we deal with it up front? Nobody is doing anything in that respect, and I am talking about all of the foundations that fund significantly community.

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There is not a focus, and we are all concerned about trying to find a way of early intervention so that women are educated, boys are educated, and we are not seeing the high incidence of FAS/FAE children, but we still have to deal with those that are in the system that need our support. So that is one area that certainly has been identified as a gap when we look at all the services that are available and all the information we have that tells us how devastating this issue is going to be and what the cost is going to be in years to come.

Ms. Cerilli: Okay. Well, I want to turn now to the report, ChildrenFirst Strategic Plan, and I want to ask some specific questions about some of the recommendations or action plans in here. Starting with the one on page 11, 1.4 Personnel Screening: "Protocols to be developed for school division personnel who have not been screened for criminal records and listing on the Child Abuse Registry." For a lot of these, I am wondering if they have been costed and if you can tell me what the cost is for that one, as well as some time in terms of plans for implementing that and if there have been staff already allocated to conduct that project.

Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, in fact, many of the school divisions do have a fairly consistent policy that is in place. There are some that do not, and I guess we want that standard protocol right across the province. We will be working towards that end goal, but there is really no additional cost to getting that up and implemented. There will be some staff time, some education process, and some ensuring that the protocol is met and lived up to in all school divisions, but that is basically staff resources and time to get--because the work has gone in by school divisions into the policy. What we want to ensure is the consistency, division to division, so there will be some more work with some divisions than with others. We are not anticipating there is any real additional cost. It will just be staff time.

Ms. Cerilli: Is there a time commitment of when you want to have all of the school divisions and schools up to par in terms of this procedure?

Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, we would hope to have that up and available by fall.

Ms. Cerilli: Okay. I am similarly interested in the program on page 13, the Multi-agency Prevention Program: a partnership of 10 agencies to deliver comprehensive intervention assistance to youth and directed at high-risk youth. I have a similar question in terms of the allocation of resources from the provincial government, each department that has been identified in the chart for that program, and so the staffing and as well a time frame for this project.

Mrs. Mitchelson: I guess the whole goal or reason for being of the secretariat is to ensure that there is co-ordination, there is sharing of resources from departments. This year the co-ordination will happen with financial resources through the Department of Health. Next year, it may be the Department of Family Services that contributes the dollars to provide the co-ordination so in this way we are getting the co-ordination resources, but it will come and there will be an expectation that departments will contribute staffing resources from different areas and different departments on a year-by-year basis so that everyone buys in.

Ms. Cerilli: I am asking just specific amounts if this project has been costed. What the minister is saying is that for this year the Department of Health is going to cover the costs for this program for one year.

My other questions were: The staff that are going to be involved, and we just went through a long discussion on how staff are seconded for the secretariat. I want to know if the staff have been allocated for this program and when the time frame is for this to be completed.

Mrs. Mitchelson: This is a program that is ongoing. It has been ongoing for three years. I guess the issue was co-ordination of this program and as a result--so Justice pays for the ongoing programming. In order to co-ordinate the programming, additional staff resources are required, and, therefore, the Department of Health is contributing additionally. So there is no more cost to the program as such; it is the co-ordinating function that needs to happen. Health is doing it this year. We will ask another department to contribute the resources for the co-ordination next year and in ensuing years so that every department that has a stake in ensuring that this program continues will contribute.

Ms. Cerilli: So how much is the Department of Health contributing or if that is just through staff time? How much is the Department of Justice contributing, and are we talking about the same program here? Is this the MAPP program as in Brandon or is this what we were talking about the other day, where the department is looking at expanding this to other jurisdictions in Manitoba?

Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, it is the MAPP program in Brandon. This is not what we were talking about the other day. It is staff resources for co-ordination from Health this year, and it will be from another department next year and in ensuing years.

Ms. Cerilli: And the amount is? How much?

Mrs. Mitchelson: It is half a staff year per year.

Ms. Cerilli: As I have said earlier, this is one of the kinds of programs that I think the Youth Secretariat was set up to encourage, so two things: I am wondering if there is a time frame attached to what we had discussed the other day of expanding the MAPP program to other jurisdictions, as well as the amount of money that Justice is providing to provide this program for Brandon.

Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, that is detailed information Justice would have in their Estimates in allocation for the MAPP program. What the secretariat's job to do is to ensure that it is co-ordinated in a fashion that is taking maximum advantage of the program, but we are not responsible for the day-to-day operation of the program.

Ms. Cerilli: Okay, so I am assuming from the minister's answer then that there is no other place in this action plan where there is a plan to expand this program to other jurisdictions, and she can clarify that.

I am going to ask similar questions about some of the other initiatives in this program or proposal. Well, we will do the one with the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) here. The Families and Schools Together Program was one that was recommended from the ministers, and it says that funds have been approved for the Family Centre. The Winnipeg Foundation has provided matching funding, and the Children and Youth Secretariat will develop the reporting requirement. So I am interested in finding out the amounts of funds that have been allocated from the Family Centre, the Winnipeg Foundation and the cost to the secretariat for developing reporting requirements as well as the time frame for implementing this program.

* (1740)

Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, this project has already started. It has been announced. There is $50,000. I guess I want to indicate that part of the secretariat's responsibility is trying to ensure that there is buy-in and there is money being redirected from government departments towards these kinds of initiatives. So it is not necessarily the secretariat's responsibility for the funding, but it is trying to identify where within government these funds should come from. The Department of Family Services has contributed $50,000. Health has contributed $50,000; Education $50,000; Justice $35,000; and Culture, Heritage and Citizenship $15,000. So that is a total of $200,000 from government. The Winnipeg Foundation has also contributed $200,000. So there is a total of $400,000 for a four-year program that will serve 132 families in five different schools, so a worthwhile program.

The Family Centre of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Foundation came forward to government. We evaluated it through the secretariat involving all departments and all departments bought into the funding. So we got a bit from everyone, which ended up being a significant amount to match the Winnipeg Foundation's funding for this program.

Ms. Cerilli: So how many staff have been hired? Which agencies are they working for to undertake this program? Which are the five schools that will be involved?

(Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

Mrs. Mitchelson: The money is given to the Family Centre of Winnipeg, and they will deliver the program. So there is no staff hired anywhere within government. It is the Family Centre of Winnipeg, and they have the responsibility. The funding goes to them, and they have the responsibility for delivering the program. I think there was an article in their newsletter that I will undertake to find and share with my honourable friend, and I think it spells out in some detail the goals and objectives of the program. There are three schools that have been identified already. One is Machray School, Machray Elementary, that is in Winnipeg 1. There are Lavallee and Greenwood Schools in St .Vital School Division, and there are still two other schools that they are trying to identify. So they have three schools on board and they are working to identify two more, but that is their decision based on where they believe the highest need is and that is working very extensively with families, parents and children to try to ensure that children do not experience failure in school, and they feel it is very important to involve the families. I am anticipating that it is going to be a very positive program.

Ms. Cerilli: Somehow I am just wanting to identify the funds that are allocated for the Choices program, and I am assuming they are from the Department of Education and Training. Similarly the schools involved and that is in progress already, so it should be fairly easy to identify those things.

Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, around the Choices program, Winnipeg School Division No.1 is delivering that program. It was $38,000 that went to Winnipeg School Division No.1 for them to hire a staff. There was a staffperson from the Department of Justice seconded to the program and the rest of the money came from the Winnipeg Development Agreement. I do not have that amount here today, but I will get it and provide it.

Ms. Cerilli: One of the other recommendations I am wanting to follow up on is on page 15, Recommendation 2.9: Reduction of Juvenile Prostitution. This has an implementation team to explore a number of strategies. Again I am wanting to find out the time line for this objective and the dollar amount allocated to it, where that money is coming from, and any staff positions that have been created for this project.

Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, the working group has just started. Well, of course, the Child and Youth Secretariat is involved, the Department of Justice is involved, the Winnipeg Police Services is involved, and the Women's Directorate is involved in that working group. I guess that working group will determine where resources might be reallocated from or whether there is a need for any additional resources, but that work has not been done and the recommendation has not been made on where to find the dollars to deliver something.

Ms. Cerilli: The first part of my question though was the time allocation for this objective. Is it to be by the end of the year to have at least the funding sources in place, to have identified the agencies where the staff would work from, that kind of thing? I mean, we must have some kind of objective here.

Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, the Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews) has asked that this be worked on expeditiously, so we do have the working group in place. I cannot give you a time frame right now, but he might be able to give you more detailed information in his Estimates around this.

* (1750)

Ms. Cerilli: Mr. Chairperson, this is one of the areas where there were a number of recommendations from the working group, and you picked here four of them. I would think that this is one that also deserves a high priority. I would just hope that the minister would be able to provide information at the Department of Justice Estimates. I know that my colleagues or myself will be there to ask the questions.

Following on that, one of the other areas that has been talked about a lot as a problem is the whole transition for young people involved with the child welfare system, the Child and Family Services system, and recommendations 2.12 involves this area. Again, I just want to get the time frame for the implementation of this recommendation which is to, as I first of all started, to develop more of a system to give attention to this transition and it would involve the Seven Oaks Centre.

So I am not quite clear, because it seems like the action here is different than what is in the description. The action says to co-ordinate intake and placement and discharge of child welfare--oh, residential care system. So this is only for those who are going to be in this new centre at Seven Oaks. This is not what I was thinking which is more generally to support young people who are making the transition into and out of being in care of Child and Family Services. Similarly, though, now that I understand the clarification on this program, I just want to see what the time frame is for implementing that, the cost of this initiative and the allocations to come from each of the departments involved.

Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, this is sort of the reallocation of about $3.9 million, those supports that we presently provide at Seven Oaks Youth Centre which needs to be shut down. As you know, it was a facility that started out being sort of a short-term placement and has ended up holding high-needs, high-risk children for sometimes up to two years without any sort of measurable or proactive treatment program. So what has happened as a result of trying to make some sense of that whole system is that we have worked very closely with Knowles, Marymound, Macdonald Youth Services and New Directions; I guess they are the four different placement agencies. We have worked very proactively with the mental health system, MATC and children's psychiatric services to try to determine how we can better manage and treat these high-risk, high-needs children, and warehousing them is not a preferred treatment option.

So we are looking at and in the process of establishment of two crisis stabilization units within the child welfare residential care system that focus on crisis intervention and stabilization. We are looking at mobile crisis teams to provide after-hours service, seven days a week to stabilize crisis situations. So we are looking at child welfare and mental health staff that would--I was going to say man--would make up the mobile crisis team. We are looking at brief treatment teams that provide immediate follow-up, brief therapy after a crisis, after the crisis has been stabilized, and we are looking at home-based crisis intervention services and psychiatric in-patient services. Those would be the beds at Health Sciences Centre, the adolescent psychiatric beds and utilization of those.

So it is a combination of child welfare and mental health supports and working together to try to stabilize situations where families find themselves in crisis and where necessary provide the support through the mental health system or through the treatment beds at Knowles Centre, Marymound, Macdonald Youth Services. We have all of those treatment facilities wanting to co-operate and work very proactively to see that we put better treatment services in place for these kids.

Ms. Cerilli: The minister gave me some detail there, but I want to know the time frame for completion of this, just quickly.

Mrs. Mitchelson: We are looking at moving on the girls' unit at Seven Oaks by this fall and closing that down, and we are working very proactively with Marymound around that. I guess the critical piece is, we would like to see it happen by this fall and maybe early spring for the second part, the boys' unit, but we want to make sure that the services are available in the community before we shut it down. We have some confidence around the girls' unit being shut down by fall; it may take us a little longer to solve the boys' issue.

Ms. Cerilli: So this is basically sort of deinstitutionalization, if you want to call it that, and the minister is assuring me that all the finances that are currently going into Seven Oaks are simply going to be reallocated into other programs that are going to be more mobile in nature and responding to crisis in the community.

I am also, because I see the time, just wanting to ask a couple of other things before I give the minister a chance to respond, and that is with regard more broadly to the secretariat's reporting. This is an agency, as we have seen through this discussion, that has got arms and legs that are reaching into all the different kinds of areas, and I think that is even more reason to have an annual report. As it exists right now there is no requirement to have a report. I am not sure what the requirements are for reporting to this House and to the community, so I want the minister to clarify that. When can we expect to see some detailed accountability from this agency?

Mrs. Mitchelson: There will be an annual report for the fall or whenever annual reports are due, and they will be under the same process as departments are for reporting on an annual basis. We should have the first one available by this fall or whatever the requirements are

I guess there was a question around Seven Oaks and, yes, all of the resources around Seven Oaks will be reallocated, besides some resources from the mental health system and some additional psychiatric beds for adolescents.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. McAlpine): 34.1(a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $434,400. Shall the item pass?

Some Honourable Members: Pass.

A Honourable Member: No.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. McAlpine): Order, please. The hour being six o'clock, committee rise. Call in the Speaker.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McAlpine): The hour being after 6 p.m., this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday).