Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So my first set of questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
So since the child and youth counsellors from HSS were shifted out of schools just over two years ago, ECE has given funds directly to the schools and education authorities for in-school mental health and wellness programs; however, many parents are still not clear what specific programs or activities are now available for their children. I understand the Minister has given considerable leeway to the schools to decide how the mental health and wellness funding is spent. Can she commit, though, to ensuring that the schools publish information and inform parents as to what programs and activities are now being offered in terms of mental health? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, just to acknowledge the Member is correct. So while health and social services provides services that are clinically based, education, culture and employment acquired funding to focus more on the prevention side. And I can confirm for the Member, yes, I agree with the Member, there needs to be a transparency and public awareness component to this. And as it exists right now education bodies are expected to report annually on the school-based mental health and wellness programming through their planning and accountability frameworks. This information is tabled annually, which is used to inform the public, but also to inform policy changes going forward to inform funding requirements, etcetera. And I can also commit to the Member that I can bring this forward as well as far as making this information potentially more digestible for parents from an education -- by education body // case. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'd appreciate if the Minister could also direct us to where those annual reports are found. I'm wondering does ECE have any requirements in terms of what the school-based programs must include in terms of parameters? For example, does it need to include some service to be able to respond to a mental health crisis by a student or options for one-on-one support in addition to group activities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, there are guidelines for this program and also policy direction on how education bodies provide access to mental wellness services, and that's divided up by a whole-school approach, classroom-based approach, small group, and also one on one. It's important to note that it is not expected by the school-based mental health and wellness program from the education side that educators also be clinicians or that the peer support workers be clinicians. And so what they've identified is through a tiered-approach to supporting students at the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, so that there is both a proactive and prevention focus on the mental health supports that schools are providing. And it's incredibly important that this program can be flexible to the needs of the school itself because our educators are best placed to understand the needs of the students, what they're going through. Our kids are talking to one another. They're talking to the adults in the school. And that is how educators are able to be responsive to what students need. That doesn't replace, though, the clinician approach from health and social services. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So just finally can the Minister tell us how she's monitoring the success of these programs to make sure it's accomplishing what it's meant to accomplish? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I meet twice a year with our education body leaders, and we do that in the spring and then again in the fall. That meeting is happening in mid November. And that's an opportunity to have really candid frank conversations with all the leaders, superintendents, and chairs, about how the program is going, and I'm very clear at every single meeting that I expect and ask for updates on everybody's programs and how it's rolling out because the mental health of our students is incredibly important.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, we also have our education accountability framework. This includes annual operating plans, budgets, performance measures, and monthly data submissions from education bodies.
We also have our early development instrument and middle years development instrument, and this is success monitoring over time.
And then we also have that data that I spoke to earlier with the Member that informs policy development, funding decisions, and service improvements. But that, again, is over time. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
