Status of Women committee  Well, I believe the issue of jurisdiction and providing services is a very complex one that has its roots in a lot of the legislation, either provincial legislation or federal legislation. The conversation we had when we talked about funding for child welfare I believe was probably one of the most significant conversations we've had about funding and jurisdiction in a long, long time.

Status of Women committee  I can just add a little to what Lisa talked about in terms of the provincial funding for family violence prevention services. We fund approximately $12 million annually for 32 different programs. That funding is considered to be core funding, and it provides money for operational funds as well as for core funding, and we have three-year agreements for those.

Status of Women committee  Actually, within our legislation in the child welfare area, there is the opportunity for communication, for consultation, for leaders at the political level. It's a required activity. Within the working level, there are also legislated entities we have that provide the opportunity both for collaboration and for communication and consultation in the child welfare area.

Status of Women committee  Well, we know that when families have a first brush with child welfare, it's generally when children are taken out of the home. It's generally not for a long time. We see a lot of children who come into care for very short periods of time. That's what we would like to address, because if you can avoid taking children into care....

Status of Women committee  Thank you. The funding model that has been developed and agreed upon by the federal and provincial governments will be providing a shift of the resources. It will be going to prevention and early intervention. This means that if a family comes in and is at what would be determined to be low risk, there would be ways in which the social work system could refer and/or support the family in terms of the services they need.

Status of Women committee  In looking at domestic violence and children, we started some initiatives a while back in terms of looking at children who witness domestic violence. We tried to put some new programming resources into our women's shelters specifically for children's services, so that when women do enter a shelter and they have the children along with them, there is some specific programming for children.

Status of Women committee  The area in which we see some promise and/or hope in terms of helping families who have challenges and/or struggles is a lot of the work that we do with family resource centres, with women's resource centres, and also with parent-child centres that you would have in communities and/or in schools, where you would begin to build some relationships with women and try to get some support and services to them that would be community based and not necessarily mandated services.

Status of Women committee  With respect to looking to the future, I think if we have equitable and stable funding for services on and off reserve in various disciplinary labels in child care, in child welfare, where we have made great progress, and also with respect to family violence, that would be exceptional in terms of the work we could be able to do.

Status of Women committee  In Manitoba we have 17 child and family services agencies that are specifically managed and run by first nations and/or Métis people. They have the responsibility for oversight and for mandating those agencies, using provincial legislation that gives them the framework with which to protect children and provide services.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much, and thank you for inviting me to speak here today. I come here today with an interest in Manitoba's children and a career that I've had working in the public sector for nearly 40 years. The areas I have some responsibility for now, and overseeing within the provincial government, are child care, child welfare, family violence prevention, and family conciliation services, which are geared toward families experiencing separation, divorce, and custodial issues with respect to those.