Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In the funding formula, the federal government uses 7% of the child population within the jurisdiction—so it's not of the children in care—to calculate the funding for the different agencies. As Elsie said, in at least two to three agencies right now, we know that the population being served in child welfare is higher than that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. As I said earlier, this is something fairly new for us, an initiative we've worked on with INAC that we're just beginning to implement. Our hope is that we would be looking at the implementation and its impact on a very regular basis. We would want to see what the outcomes of it are and have the ability to come back to the table to look at areas that we feel that problems and/or in which we need to change direction, if any kind of evaluation we do so indicates.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  When you refer specifically to the enhanced prevention framework, which is something that is being implemented in many jurisdictions, as I indicated earlier, the question is broader for Manitoba than the enhanced prevention framework, because we have included the entire spectrum of what we offer in the funding model.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  One of the things we recognize is that your workforce should be reflective of the population it is serving. In looking at who works in child welfare in Manitoba, there were definite efforts to ensure that we were on a path to try to change who was working in our system. I'm going to let Elsie talk a bit about some of the efforts in the Southern Authority.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We work with departments, both at the provincial level and at the federal level. At the provincial level, we work collaboratively with the health, justice, and education departments, primarily, and with an area we call healthy living. In those different sectors there are different programs that affect child welfare and children in families.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  When we started looking at the new model for the delivery of services in Manitoba, there were a couple of key things that were identified as needing to be in place. One was that the authorities were going to be looking at the mandating of agencies. And they are culturally representative of their communities.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think the other factor that has to be looked at is that while we're working with a very specific model that's tied to a funding scheme, overall when you begin to look at the prevention initiatives that have been embarked upon across the country and in other countries, there are significant evaluations that are attached to many of them.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In the model we worked on developing, there are the similar—or the exact same, you might say—components that are funded for every agency we have in Manitoba, whether they provide services on and off reserve or off reserve only. We've looked at quantifying the agencies; we have a small, medium, large categorization that we have used.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  One of the big differences you will see across the country is that Manitoba's model of governance is very different. With the aboriginal justice inquiry child welfare initiative, the province and the first nations entered into a different kind of agreement in terms of how we work together.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Any time you have shared jurisdiction, whether it's with respect to funding and/or for services and funding, the opportunities that present themselves if you can do collaborative work and reach some agreements that are going to have benefits for children and for families, whether they're living on or off reserve, are definitely a plus.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We had, as Ms. Flette indicated, a working group and a consultative process that changed the type of approach we used. For us it's not, as you referred to it, the “Alberta model”; our model is quite different, because it involves an entire funding model looking at both protection and prevention, and it is something that we built together with the agencies and the authorities at the table, and also with INAC and the province at the table.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  A minute is a very short period of time in which to talk about as big an issue as you present to us. One of the things we need to do is work in partnership with levels of government and with those people who have a jurisdiction to provide service. One of the things that we know as we move forward is that child welfare cannot do its job by itself; recognizing that there are other departments that we have to work with is also a very important component of what we do.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much. One of the things that happened in Manitoba was that in our discussions with INAC, the authorities, and our agencies, we did something different from what is happening, from what I can understand, in other provinces. While most of the other provinces focused on what was referred to as the enhanced prevention model, we went a little further in terms of looking at how we could actually build a funding model that would include both prevention and the protection differences we have experienced in our province.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You are.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Many thanks for inviting me to appear before this committee today. As indicated, I am Carolyn Loeppky, with the Department of Family Services and Consumer Affairs in Manitoba. I have served the people of Manitoba in that capacity for the last four years and I have over 35 years of experience in the public sector.