Children and Youth — Issue No. 11 — Tuesday, October 21, 2014 (HTML)

Present: Jane Thornthwaite, MLA (Chair); Doug Donaldson, MLA (Deputy Chair); Donna Barnett, MLA; Mike Bernier, MLA; Maurine Karagianis, MLA; John Martin, MLA; Dr. Darryl Plecas, MLA; Jennifer Rice, MLA; Dr. Moira Stilwell, MLA

1. There not yet being a Chair elected to serve the Committee, the meeting was called to order at 8:07 a.m. by the Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees.

2. Resolved, that Jane Thornthwaite, MLA, be elected Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth. (Donna Barnett, MLA)

3. Resolved, that Doug Donaldson, MLA, be elected Deputy Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth. (Maurine Karagianis, MLA)

5. The Chair provided an update on Child and Youth Mental Health and Substance Use Collaborative Spread and Sustainability Congress.

6. The Committee discussed its work on the youth mental health special project and agreed to work towards development of a draft report in the coming weeks.

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
CHILDREN AND YOUTH


CONTENTS
Page
Election of Chair and Deputy Chair	331
Committee Terms of Reference	331
Update: Child and Youth Mental Health and Substance Use Collaborative Spread and Sustainability Congress	332
Youth Mental Health Project	333
Committee Meeting Schedule	343

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Good morning, Members. As this is the first meeting of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth for this session of the 40th parliament and there has not yet been a Chair elected to serve the committee, I’d like to open up the floor for nominations to that position.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Are there any further nominations? Any further nominations? Any further nominations?

M. Karagianis: I’d like to nominate Doug Donaldson as vice-Chair of this committee.

Everybody’s got the agenda, and as you can see, we’ve got a review of the terms of reference. We’re going to mention a little bit about that right now. I’m going to actually get Kate to talk a bit. Then I’m going to give an update on the conference that I went to a couple of weeks ago in Kelowna on behalf of the committee on the Interior collaborative, which we did hear about.

Then we want to get to the meat of the meeting with regard to your thoughts on the submissions that we either heard personally or that you have read and get a feel of the direction that we want to go moving forward as of today. We’ll talk about upcoming meetings and any other business.

Kate, did you just want to give a little blurb on the review of terms of reference?

Good morning again, Members. The terms of reference that were adopted by the Legislative Assembly to reactivate your committee for the current session have been distributed this morning. In essence, they are identical to the responsibilities that have been delegated to you by the House in previous sessions. But I would draw your attention to point 5 on the terms of reference, which asks, pursuant to subsection 30(2) of the Representative for Children and Youth Act, that the committee undertake an assessment, to be completed by April 5 next year, 2015, of the effectiveness of section 6(1)(b) of the representative’s act.

What section 6(1)(b) refers to is the monitoring function. That is one of three main areas of responsibility that is held by the Representative for Children and Youth office. Members will be aware that a number of years ago, beginning in the year 2011, the committee actually undertook a fulsome review of the entire act, pursuant to the statutory review provisions within the act.

One of the recommendations that came through from that process was to review the need for the continued oversight of the ministry through this monitoring function in section 6(1)(b). Hence the recommendation has come full circle now, back to your committee, within your terms of reference, to complete the assessment of the role of the representative by next spring.

When the committee undertook its statutory review in 2011, it was a more comprehensive review of the whole act. The committee met with a number of key stakeholders, including the Ministry of Children and Family Development, the representative and even former Justice Ted Hughes with respect to how well the act was working. The report made seven recommendations, including this review of the monitoring function.

As you are planning your meeting schedule in the months ahead, I think it would helpful to consider how you might want to approach this additional element, given the time sensitivity that it’s been framed within in your terms of reference this morning.

I think just a moment ago, just by way of background, Byron circulated a brief excerpt from the statutory review report, which includes a bit of a narrative description of how the committee considered the question of that particular section at its last review, a number of years ago, and the recommendation attached to that.

The entire act, as I understand it, is part of a five-year statutory review cycle. That five-year cycle will kick into place in 2017. We need not worry about that in the months ahead. It’s simply this one provision for the monitoring function that is included in the terms of reference this session.

If there are any questions on that, I’d be pleased to assist the committee, but I just wanted to draw your attention to it for the record at this time.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Thanks, Kate. We’ll take questions and comments, but it’s looking like we’re going to have to have another meeting on this particular topic as well as with the other reports that we have to review from the representative.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): No. 5 in the terms of reference jumped out at me when I reviewed it. I was curious as to what it meant. Thank you for the explanation from the Clerk.

I’d definitely be curious, since I wasn’t part of the 2011 review…. The Clerk mentioned seven recommendations and why we’re dealing with just one of those recommendations and where the impetus came from for this one recommendation being chosen for us to review and assess. I’m still curious as to who made the decision to pick this one recommendation out of the seven. Where did that direction come from?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): If I can paraphrase, I guess, the process that led the committee to that recommendation…. I think there were a number of very detailed submissions presented to the committee, primarily led by the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the representative’s office.

Both offices had come to the same conclusion. Although the ministry, I think, had planned within the direction set originally by the Hughes report to be able to take on the monitoring function formally at that point in time — three years ago — both had mutually come to the same conclusion, when before the committee, that it was best deferred for a number of years until the ministry felt that they were ready to take on those responsibilities in a fulsome and effective way.

So they both made the same recommendation to the committee, and the committee, having heard the same message from both offices, agreed to flag that one, based, I believe, on the timeline that was suggested in the submissions that were put forward at that time.

You’re quite right, Doug, that the entire act was recommended for continuing statutory review on a five-year cycle, but I believe the three years came from the deputy minister, Stephen Brown at the time, and also was supported by Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond. That’s my understanding.

I also have a complete copy of the entire review for those who might want to refresh their memories as to the work that was done by the committee a few years ago. It highlights some of the other recommendations that were also brought forward and implemented subsequent to that process.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): I think it would be a good idea to make sure that everybody has a copy of that. Then when we come to the second-last item on the agenda when we’re setting meetings, we can work it into there.

All right. Thanks to Kate for bringing to our attention that there’s something we have to do before April — meaning we have time, but it’s good to know that we have this on our plate.

M. Karagianis: I just wanted to touch on the fact that in the second part of the terms of reference here, “in addition to the powers previously conferred,” there’s a list of a number of things here that are new to the terms of reference that we’ve had in the past. I think these are all great items, and I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that it is actually broadening the powers of this committee and the responsibilities of this committee.

I think it’s a great move forward — the things that we’re now including as a formal part of our terms of reference. I just want to say congratulations on us getting those things included in the terms of reference.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Yeah, and our special project is part of that work that we’re doing. So it’s all good.

Update: Child and Youth Mental Health
and Substance Use Collaborative Spread
and Sustainability Congress

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): If we’ve got no other questions or comments about that item, we’ll go on to No. 4, which is the update on the Child and Youth Mental Health and Substance Use Collaborative, which I attended on September 29.

It was actually an excellent conference. I was part of a panel, so I wasn’t there for the entire conference. It was
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a two-day conference. I was only there for one. But I just wanted to draw your attention to the panel that I was part of and the people that were actually on that panel so that you can get an impression of what we discussed.

I came away from the conference day with very positive thoughts about what the Interior collaborative is doing with their partnerships between the Doctors of British Columbia, Interior Health, as well as the Ministry of Health. MCFD was there as well actually — Mark Sieben, the deputy minister.

The people that were on the dialogue panel with me were two youth and two parents; Doug Hughes, who’s an ADM from Ministry of Health — he’s the one that’s responsible for child and youth mental health in the Ministry of Health; Dr. Bill Cavers, who’s the president of the Doctors of B.C.; Dr. Robert Halpenny, who’s the CEO and president of Interior Health; and myself, the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth.

It was very well organized by a couple of fellows who asked specific questions across the panel. I thought it was very good. I’ll just mention what the goal was. “During this plenary session, youth, families and systems leaders and planners will engage in a facilitated dialogue to explore their perspective on change, and a particular focus will be the rich potential of youth, families and systems planners and leaders working together.” So it was quite high-level but basically an affirmation of the work that the Interior collaborative is doing.

I’m not going to get into that because we did have a very good presentation of several members that talked about it, but I just wanted to let everybody know that they were happy that we had a committee. Lots of people don’t know that this committee exists, but they were very happy that there was this committee in the Legislature that has got members from both sides of the House. They were very appreciative of our special project and us embarking on this special project to do with child and youth mental health.

There was a representative from the representative’s office there, as well — not Mary Ellen herself but a representative. There was also a representative from the Ministry of Education, which I was quite pleased to see — Sherri Mohoruk — and there were some people from the RCMP who represented the justice end of it. I actually was quite pleased with the depth of individuals that were attending this conference.

There is a press release that was put out on May 7, 2014, by the Doctors of B.C., Interior Health and the province — partners working to improve support for young people with mental health and substance use issues. I would encourage you or anybody else that’s interested to look at that press release, because it does give you a little bit more detail on the Spread and Sustainability Congress.

On that note, I’m just going to leave it. When we get into the round table that we’re doing in the next session, I’m going to address this conference in light of how we might want to move forward with the committee’s work with this special project. But before I do that, I want to open it up for questions and comments.

D. Barnett: I’ll just say that I’m glad you went. We were well represented. The mental health program that Interior Health is doing is actually up in my riding. There’s been a lot of work. Dr. Fedor — I think he was here and spoke to us all.

It is a great project, and I would sincerely like to see this committee here support that project, support it going to all the health authorities, engage those health authorities and go back to the minister with a recommendation that this program be funded throughout all the regional health authorities.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Thanks, Donna. Yeah, they did mention the integrated clinical coordinators in the Cariboo, the Williams Lake site. It’s right in your neck of the woods there.

I also thank you very much, Kate, for the support for me to go up. I think it was good that we were up there and represented.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Okay, the next part of the agenda is the round table discussion re youth mental health special projects. I do hope — and I assume — that everybody has had a good opportunity to look at a lot of the presenters that either obviously reviewed and came and visited us in person but also the people that submitted submissions to us via e-mail that were so well put out for us to check out on the Internet.

There are significant themes, as I’m sure everybody knows. I picked up a lot, actually — expansions from what we learned in person. I thought what I’d do is just throw it out to the committee members. We’ll just go around the table and maybe take your main points, based on the questions that the submissions were asked. I’ll just review them. You’ve got them in front of you, the consultation questions.

“What are the main challenges around youth mental health in B.C.?” There are some examples here: “youth mental illnesses, stigma, bullying, early onset, public awareness, barriers to access, and aboriginal people.”

No. 2: “Are there current gaps in service delivery?” For instance: “assessments and referrals, early identification and intervention, in-patient services, out-patient services, transitioning youth, fragmentation of services, rural access, and aboriginal services.”

Question 3: “What are the best practices for treating and preventing youth mental health issues? Interior collaborative, integrated service delivery, youth-appropriate
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services, early-years support, community-based service providers, education, mandatory treatment, telephone and on-line counselling, advocacy and peer support like the Youth LAB.

And lastly, how should resources be targeted in the future? Example: integrated community services, wait-list reduction, crisis response, in-patient beds, community-based services, transition services, prevention and early treatment and school supports. Then at the bottom there: conclusions and recommendations, which, of course, we haven’t discussed — how we’re going to move forward on that.

When we chatted yesterday, the Chair put a good thought into my head. It’s what stuck out. We heard a lot of testimony, and it was a while ago. And to me, I think, what stuck out is the very disjointed system, more so than I had imagined. Pockets of very good practice — and we heard some of those, and some of them have been referenced already — but, for me, too many examples of areas where there’s lack of service or lack of coordination and putting kids at risk because of that.

What really stuck out for me was the day that we had the parents come in, the in-camera day. I think some of these people were very, very agent. They’re not people that aren’t used to trying to deal with the system, and yet they oftentimes had stories of not being able to navigate the system.

What I’ve taken from that and what I’ve taken from some of the other presentations is that there is a need for better coordination. I mean, we have the Ministry of Health, we have the Ministry of Child and Family Development, we have the Ministry of Education, we have non-profit organizations, we have the RCMP, and they’re all dealing with this issue in one way or another.

I think it was pointed out that there’s a lack of coordination and overall leadership and accountability about who is ultimately responsible for these services and addressing gaps and promoting best practices.

I think that was touched on by a number of the presentations — the need for either interministerial accountability and leadership, whether that goes right up into the bureaucracy around a deputy minister or, as the children’s representative pointed out, a minister of state. Regardless, I think the overall lack of coordination is a major issue, and the accountability that comes with that.

The other thing that stuck out for me was some of the lack of services and how different organizations are approaching it. Jules Wilson — he was with the Federation of B.C. Youth in Care Networks — presented to us in Vancouver. He talked about a holistic approach. That was also touched on by Bev Clifton Percival from the First Nations Child and Family Wellness Council.

It’s holistic from the aspect of all those different services that are required by youth and children facing mental health issues, whether it’s the health sector, whether it’s cultural-appropriate services, whether it’s child care, whether it’s housing — the overall ball of wax that enables people to get better and how that’s important. It can’t be just one agency or one particular service delivery.

Dr. Steve Mathias also mentioned housing. I thought that he was very articulate around the inner-city youth mental health program and the housing that goes with that as well.

I think those are my initial comments — accessibility, coordination, leadership and the services that are there and how there’s a need for a holistic approach on them.

M. Bernier: First, I guess we should start by thanking all the people who put in submissions. There were a lot of submissions, especially written, that came in.

Going through all of those — the Chair is correct — there were some themes that started to take place as you were reading through them. I just want to thank everybody for the time that they took to inform us, I guess, to help us with the decision-making.

You know, some of the things that jumped out for me…. There was some talk in quite a few of them about some of the great local groups, especially in rural British Columbia. Smaller communities have some very passionate people with some great ideas. How do we, maybe, do a better job of looking at some of those models that they have and maybe emulating them around the province a little bit better? Small communities tend to — what I saw there — try to be a little bit more resourceful with the limited options that they have, and there seems to have been some success there.

But in saying that, there was a lot of…. What I saw there, the issue for rural British Columbia — and I had to get this before my colleague Donna — is that some of the challenges are really around capacity and making sure that there are the options there for earlier assessment. That’s one of the things — early detection, earlier assessment, how we help the smaller communities.

And then one that really jumped out at me — and I think we’ve heard this as a constant theme that we have to figure out how to address — is more with the education system. We put a lot of pressure, I think, on the education system, the teachers, the counsellors in the school system. Do they have the ability or the capacity?

I’d love to hear from the Minister of Education to hear what their plans are — how we have to integrate with them. Starting at grade 4 or 5, kids are starting in the education system, and if we don’t have the ability to as-
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sess or really monitor at an early age and then figure out where the programs are to help those youth…. That’s where I think we have to try to jump into this a little bit earlier to help.

Those were a couple of things that jumped out for me that I thought we should bring forward.

M. Karagianis: Well, I think all of us were probably quite profoundly moved by the presentations we heard. I think any of my colleagues that I’ve talked to…. We were all, I guess, quite disturbed by much of the information we heard.

Although you may know anecdotally what’s going on in your community and you may know anecdotally a general feel for what’s happening with youth mental health and issues around homelessness and suicide rates and things, I think having face-to-face discussions with families and listening to those families talk about their direct experiences really put a personal face on it. So for me, much like Doug mentioned, the in-camera discussions with families and youth with mental health problems were extremely impacting, impactful.

I’m concerned about a couple of things — that we make sure in this report that we’re very responsible about what recommendations we bring forward, because I think there’s a lot of attention and focus and hope being put on the outcome of this report from this committee from, certainly, all of those involved in the youth mental health fields. The lack of a sort of universality to services, I think, is a big concern.

We can sit here and say: “Wow, there are really these fabulous integrated services.” There’s Interior collaborative. You know, there are pockets of really excellent services, and then there’s this other kind of disconnect in many communities.

And it’s not just rural. In fact, I think that it looked to me like many of the urban services were even more disconnected than the rural. At least in smaller communities…. You have fewer services, they are more connected, and those organizations work together, whereas in the city I was really disturbed to see how difficult it was for families to get into a system of care and services, to stay there, to find them.

I mean, parents had to be really diligent. When we heard from the mother who had years of experience of trying to overcome barriers and still was having no success, I think that speaks very strongly to the fact that, you know, for people who are highly effective in their business life and in their day-to-day life…. If they can’t navigate the system, what hope is there for anybody who’s marginalized at all and certainly for youth trying to find their own way through the system?

So I think the fact that there are so many disconnected services and so many gaps in service generally is a big concern.

The lack of education generally. It’s not just turning to the education system to be, obviously, a monitor and an early alert system but looking at educating generally the public and youth, as they’re going through school, as they face these issues that it’s okay to seek help, that it’s easy to seek help and that help will be provided when they go looking for it. It seems to me that those pieces are missing.

For any young people right now that are in school or are out there trying to struggle through some of these issues on their own, it is difficult. It is difficult to find a way into the system. It’s not easy, and we need to make it a lot easier.

I think we should also be looking at connecting with other organizations besides just schools. I think of Boys and Girls Clubs and other youth organizations, where lots of times they’re seeing young people who are disconnected in some way from the system, from their families, or who maybe just can’t access counselling or some kinds of services through school. There’s a potential for outreach there, I think, if all organizations that deal with youth thought of youth mental health as part of their criteria, to look at early intervention.

The whole idea of how you transition through services. Even if, let’s say, you’re successful enough to get early intervention and you’re successful enough in your community to find services for your child, transitioning as they grow up through their teens and as they leave their teens — there’s a huge drop-off point. There’s a cliff.

As you come out of school and as you come out of youth services, there’s a cliff that you drop off, and then what happens to those young people? It’s much more difficult, because they immediately graduate into adult services — which, again, have many of their own problems, many of their own gaps in services. I think the whole issue around transitioning also needs to be something that needs to be focused on.

The earlier you can intervene in a young person’s life and help them sort out those issues, help them deal with those issues, get them able to function better in healthier, happier lives, the more likelihood that they will do that for the rest of their lives, rather than seeing this as a sort of patchwork of services. You get a kid out of school, they become a young adult, they get sent off on their own, and then they end up struggling, often, with all kinds of issues for a long time, whether it’s self-medication, whether it’s homelessness, whether it’s all the variety of things that we see that are connected to this.

I think we have to view early intervention and giving the very best supports that we can as early as possible in a young person’s life as the best possible opportunity for them to have healthy lives for the long term.

Around best practices, I think we heard from some great organizations. We heard about communities that are doing a fabulous job. How we replicate that or how we encourage government and communities to replicate that
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is a big challenge, because I think we do need to do that.

We need to share this information. If we manage to cobble together some good recommendations, I think we need to share it with communities. We need to share it with municipalities. We need to share it with leaders across the province so that everybody is at least trying to strive for the same level of best practice.

As much as I support telephone and on-line counselling, they’re not all that we should provide to young people. A telephone is not a counsellor. A telephone conversation doesn’t tell you anything about the emotional state and anxiety that the person you’re talking to might be going through. There has been a tendency, I think, over the last couple of decades to turn more and more to these help lines as somehow the great resolution to issues. It’s not. I think we need to make sure that there is more support out there for young people than there currently is, and it just needs to be a lot easier to find.

I do very strongly feel that although we’ve been dealing with this through the ministry, we’ve kind of perceived our job here in reaching out and conducting this forum as part of the responsibilities we have to children and youth.

I think this is a health problem. I think that this needs to have more of a connect with the Health Ministry. These are part of health services, just like any other service. If you have cancer, you go, and you get early checkups. You get early intervention. You get immediate response. You get every possible health option offered to you so that you can live a healthier life and cure the disease or at least live with the circumstances to the best ability.

We don’t treat youth mental health or mental health issues in the same way. There is still a stigma attached to it. So I think that it needs to be treated in the health system in exactly the same way as we treat any other illness.

That’s a role that I think we could play in trying to transition this away from some segment of youth care into health. It is health. It’s long-term health.

If you had a child who had early-onset cancer or a child who had some kind of disease or diabetes or asthma or any of those other health conditions, you would find it easier to access help for that. If you have a child with mental health problems, the barriers are unbelievable. I think we need to be treating it the same way as we do other childhood illnesses and other human illnesses and be able to provide those things through the health care system.

J. Martin: Chair, like yourself, I hold a regular monthly coffee drop-in for constituents. I had the second-best-attended one this last weekend. It was almost like someone had distributed the materials that this committee has been working with. It was absolutely, from start to finish, issues of youth mental health, addiction, homelessness and the struggles.

One of the most enduring stories that came out of that…. It was a great exchange. A First Nations gentleman who recently successfully dealt with and had treated minor prostate cancer is talking about the inundation of services, the invites for early treatment for this type of surgery, for this type of follow-up.

At the same time, he has a young daughter — runaway, addicted, homeless, sex worker. His frustration with the distinction between the resources that were available for his particular health issue and the frustration of trying to access help for his child…. It spoke so eloquently to the things that we’re discussing here, the struggle for early assessment — that until things got virtually out of control, he wasn’t able to get a first responder.

This is something that this committee has heard over and over in the work we do, in the forums and from the presenters. The warning signs are often there at four or five years old, and the ability to respond…. Even if we’re saying six, seven, eight years old, sometimes the ability to have access to assessment or any response whatsoever can be very frustrating, particularly when we take some geography into account.

The delivery of services geographically, which we’ve heard about, I find very problematic in this case. The individual had to send his daughter to Surrey, and things went really well. When his daughter came back to Chilliwack, things went not so well again. This fragmentation of services and the regionalization…. It can be an extreme struggle for someone that may have issues around transportation, around familiarity with outlying areas.

The issue of aboriginal services, which we’ve heard, again, many, many times…. It can be heartbreaking, what this committee has been hearing about some of the struggles of some communities. I think it’s a priority to address any disparity between urban, rural, aboriginal, non-aboriginal communities. Some of the issues we saw around barriers to access I believe need to be prioritized.

There is still significant stigmatization, despite the attempts at education, despite the attempts at trying to kick-start a paradigm shift in how we view people with mental health issues. The public perception, the stigmatization, can still be an enormous barrier.

Just to summarize, again, that meeting I had with the constituents literally was a template for what we’re going through. I think there’s an awareness out there now that maybe wasn’t there five years ago that probably is going to make it much more inviting for a committee like this to make some headway and move some of the pieces around. There’s an appetite for this particular challenge that I haven’t seen in the past. After that recent meeting, I’m convinced more than ever that we’re absolutely on the right track, asking the right questions and bringing in the right people to give us the lowdown on what’s actually going out there on the front lines.
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D. Barnett: I agree with what my colleague Maurine said. This issue of mental health belongs with Health. It should have input from all the different ministries that are related to youth, but it definitely belongs in Health. That’s what the Interior collaborative is; it is with Health.

It’s difficult in rural B.C., and it’s difficult in the urban centres. One of the biggest problems we have…. We do have lots of services within a lot of our areas, but nobody talks to anybody else. I can honestly say that I’m really proud of my area on how they’ve come together.

We also have some of the agencies, such as the child development centre, such as the women’s centre, such as the Boys and Girls Clubs. There are four or five of them that deal with youth that have actually formed a local co-op, and it is a legal entity. What they do is they share services. They meet at least every six weeks and talk about who’s doing what, how they can help the other person. It is a fantastic way that they are helping the youth in all aspects, right from mental health to other issues.

To me, the important part about it is that I don’t think we need to go out and start to reinvent the wheel. I think we need to take a good look at what’s out there that is working and, hopefully, build on it. We can’t force organizations like Boys and Girls Clubs and child development centres and other organizations to work together. They have to want to.

You and I both know — we’ve been out here long enough — that a lot of it is: “It’s my organization, and I really don’t want to expose it to other organizations, and I want those dollars for my organization.”

When you see something like a co-op that has been formed up in Williams Lake, it is fabulous to see how far and how much they do for the youth, right from the daycare centre right up to the women’s centre. They’re all cooperating and sharing and working together. It’s a great model.

I know that if you wanted to, I could get one of the administrators to come and talk to us about it. It is great.

J. Rice: I just wanted to make the comment that I think the thing that really stuck out for me throughout our hearings and our work in this committee for the last year was just how difficult it is for families to access services and how complicated and convoluted the process is.

I keep thinking about the woman that spoke to us where there was a social worker that was the gatekeeper for her child. That child had a severe mental illness, but the social worker was not adequately trained to diagnose and assess that child. This is not a criticism of the social worker. I guess what speaks to me is: the wrong person is the gatekeeper in that particular situation. I can’t help but wonder how many other families are in that situation.

That being said, to get help, there are so many different paths to getting help that aren’t structured or cohesive in any way. Again, I feel that the families that have the means, with the resources or the wherewithal or the education to be strong advocates, are those that are getting the help. Those that might not necessarily be as well-resourced are being left behind, and that’s really concerning to me.

That would be one of my top concerns. I feel there are so many barriers, regardless of whether you live rurally or in an urban environment. But saying that, coming from a rural environment, I do see a huge discrepancy in the services available and, again, barriers for rural communities to access health.

If I just reflect back recently on the murder-suicide that happened in my community, it was just a really unfortunate situation. Really, the parent had no resources. But had she been in a different environment, in a different city, in a different town, she could still be alive and her son could still be alive today.

I agree that we need in-patient and out-patient services. I don’t think hospitalizing people is the cure for mental illness, but without a doubt, there’s a shortage of beds. Again, I would say that there’s a shortage of in-patient services in northern and rural communities.

I’ve heard stories where people in Prince Rupert have gotten on the Northern Health connections bus, which is a great service to access health care in larger regions such as Prince George or Vancouver. But when you have an addictions or a mental health challenge and you get on in Prince Rupert and have a 12-hour journey to get to Prince George, people will hop off that bus and abuse substances or, in fear of what mental health is going to look like at the other end, not get to the other end. I think looking at regional services and better supports is important.

I asterisked the fragmentation of services. Again, I consider myself an informed and educated woman. In my constituency office I am overwhelmed with the amount of walk-ins looking for the proper services, yet I am struggling to navigate these services myself, as the MLA, and struggle to provide assistance to these families. I can’t imagine what an overworked or overextended family is experiencing when they’re trying to get care for their child with a mental health challenge.

Of course, I think that in health in general, integrating services is the way of the future. We’ve for far too long fragmented health, whether that’s a mental or a physical health issue. Of course, I support looking at people in a holistic manner — and, again, the services reflecting us as human beings, in a holistic way.

I was definitely impressed with the Youth LAB, the peer support. I’m more just curious about it. I don’t really have an opinion, I guess, at this point, but I really was curious. It really piqued my interest as something…. I’d be curious to see how that would work in other communities, particularly in rural communities.

The telephone and on-line counselling. I might just have to disagree slightly with my colleague here. In the
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north, telehealth has become a huge success story. I was skeptical that providing psychiatric services via a Skype-like format would be effective, but it has been proven to be very successful in the Northern Health Authority. If it is working, then I think we should continue to do so.

Mind you, I think I would agree that face-to-face interaction and professionals doing a proper assessment — where you get to see the person as a whole person, as I was mentioning earlier, versus a one- or two-dimensional figure on a computer screen — is important. But it solves an ongoing problem that we all know of in the north, which is resources, particularly doctors.

We have a shortage of physicians, and we have a shortage of health care professionals. In Prince Rupert, in particular, the mental health and addiction workers…. It has been vacant for well over a year for Northern Health. It’s really, really concerning.

How should resources be targeted in the future? It’s really hard for me to just pick a few things.

Definitely the integrated community services. We certainly have to reduce the wait-list — the stories that we heard about kids just developing and missing out in early years, early intervention. Science has proven it: that we have to develop those young brains before the age of six. It’s really unfortunate if these people are practically adults before they get properly assessed and treated.

Definitely transition services. I think we’ve heard, from Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the challenges of when you turn 19. You don’t all of sudden just become self-sufficient and self-supporting and all right to be in the world. I can’t imagine what some of the 19-year-olds are experiencing.

Lastly, I just wanted to echo the fact that we were talking earlier about stigma and bullying, and yet I feel like we feed the stigma of mental health by not actually calling mental health what it is, which is a health issue. I think that to help with the fragmentation of services and the convoluted and confusing way in which people access services for their children with mental health issues, we should just treat it as it what it is, which is a health issue. By us segregating it off and treating it differently, we’re actually, in fact, denying what it really is.

M. Stilwell: I won’t repeat some of the things that people said. I think the consultation questions, quite naturally, are quite tactically and service-oriented, which is good. We did hear a lot from people. Certainly, the stories from families were a real eye-opener for many of us.

I think there are some framework issues that we heard alluded to that are policy, that I don’t think have been carefully looked at in recent years. That would be helpful to address some of the issues that people have talked about. We did hear about those.

One, we certainly heard a very coherent and persistent recommendation, which Jennifer has just alluded to, and that is that this is a health issue and needs to move into the Ministry of Health. We spoke with laypeople who had played very active roles in helping government formulate their youth mental health policies who also agreed that indeed it was time.

With respect to the word “transitioning,” I think we need to really think about that from a bunch of perspectives. First of all, it was very clear from everyone that the whole concept of transitions…. Let’s first talk about medical transition, where people are transitioned out of the pediatric system at 16, and then the transition on the social assistance side, which is around 19. Both of those fall in the peak age group for this health issue. That, I think, is something that can’t just be a footnote or an aside.

We cannot manage mental health like we do other health issues, using those ages, when the peak incidence of these illnesses is age 14 to 25. I really feel strongly that there has to be an understanding, to the policy and ministry level, that the concept of transition….

You know, it’s okay if you were born with a congenital heart defect that was operated on in your first month and then you survived to 16 and have grown into a young adult and then are going into adulthood.

Clearly, for mental health, this is an imaginary proposition that creates an enormous barrier for any organization, including the health system and the ministries, to provide the appropriate care. I just feel that those two things are fundamental.

Secondly, with respect to access, we heard some stories around access that were very upsetting. I think several people have alluded to it. You start the mental health — or brain health, which is, I think, what it should be called nowadays, given what we know about it…. We start it at the end of early childhood interventions and assessment when you’re really trying to maintain mental health. But when those services, including education, are unsuccessful in maintaining mental health, and there is an illness, you have to have access to medical care.

I was discouraged, as much as I think multidisciplinary teams are very important and helpful, that the gatekeepers were, it appeared — at times, at least — working to block access, whereas any team member should be really working on a continuum of access to the best available care and diagnosis and then management.

That leads me back to measurements and how people are accountable. When people are told to keep the waiting list short, the way you do that is keep people off the waiting list, right? I was very, very discouraged about the incident we heard, where people were repeatedly trying to get a child who clearly had the most fundamental
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symptoms of mental illness and could not get past a gatekeeper. That was a problem.

Finally, one of the physicians said something interesting out of frustration. He said: “The CLBC is useless.” What he was referring to — which I thought was important and probably intuitive, although I had never really thought about — is…. He said: “Many of these young people, once you treat their mental illness” — which, for instance, can often be crippling anxiety, where they won’t leave their home or bedroom and don’t go to school — “when you treat those mental symptoms successfully, what you have underneath is cognitive problems.”

These are young people who have held on by their fingers in the school system as long as they could and were either undiscovered or not successfully dealt with who now are in a system where they are being treated, with varying degrees of success, for mental health, but underneath, their ability to move on is related to cognitive issues.

You can’t get into any system unless you’re diagnosed very early. For instance, for CLBC you have to be diagnosed before you’re six with having a cognitive problem. So this speaks very much to better screening and diagnosis. I thought that was very, very potent.

Those are just, to me, policy issues that then will give you tools to, I think, address some of the more on-the-ground, service-oriented changes or suggestions or improvements.

D. Plecas: I guess I just want to first start by thanking those people and organizations, as my colleague from Peace River has, for their contributions. We all know how significant those contributions were. I’d also like to thank my fellow members of the committee here for their comments along the way and, in particular, the comments today, which I think are right on and do a good job of capturing what we’ve heard and where we need to go.

Finally, I’d also like to thank the Chair for the invitation to visit the HOpe centre at Lions Gate Hospital, because it was one thing which was, in our exercise here, very inspiring — to see what could be. Simply by way of emphasizing what people have already said, I think we all know that there are certainly long-term benefits to early assessment and identification.

It’s great to see there’s an awareness more than ever of the importance of that, both short term and long term, including a huge financial benefit down the road, which we of course need to pay more attention to — and the need for better coordination, awareness of best practices and an openness about that.

I, like my colleague Maurine on the other side here, was skeptical about the telephone service. Then, at the same time, I have to respect that there are lots of indicators that say, you know, this has got some potential. So let’s be attentive to that.

For me, I guess I would have to say that in all of the things I do in my job as an MLA, there’s nothing more heart-wrenching, disheartening, difficult than seeing the numbers of people who come into my office — and seeing them elsewhere — with mental health issues and having a sense of helplessness about what we can do. It’s just many, many times.

So for me, it’s a matter of…. Once again, we know what to do. We know what needs to be done. We’ve got to start doing it in a broader and more significant way. We’re at a place where we’re doing some of these things. We’re doing best practices. We’re doing it in pockets, but we all know that there are huge gaps.

Sometimes I look at those, and I think: “Wow, we have such a long way to go. The need is so great.” I think, as we’ve already heard here today, that we would be certainly helped by having this move more to Health. It’s so obviously a health issue more than anything.

Hopefully, this committee, through its work, can help drive home the point that we’ve got lots to do to get to where we need to be. Everybody knows it, so let’s do it.

I thought what I would do is just give my thoughts on what I heard, and then perhaps throw it out to you as to a suggestion on how we move forward.

Like everybody that was at this committee, we heard some major, major stories from individuals and parents as well as caregivers, doctors and groups as to what is needed to be done to improve the services that we provide for child and youth mental health.

I agree with everybody here. The word that comes up from every one of you was “coordination” or “fragmentation” or lack thereof. I think anybody that you talk to within the system, or even without of the system, would agree with that. Whether or not that means moving the whole child and youth mental health system into Health from MCFD is something that I think we should explore, because it did come up a lot.

I think that just change for the sake of change, though…. Are we going from one system to another and disrupting everything? Is it actually going to make a positive change? It’s something we have to think about if we’re going to put forward that recommendation.

One of the things that I heard big-time is what my colleague Donna had mentioned are the benefits of systems coordinated like the Interior collaborative. I intend to agree with you that if we could copy that provincewide, that would be, at least, something to strive for.

I also heard what everybody else heard about the differences in access — not just rural and urban but even within health authorities. We heard, for instance, in the North Shore that there was lesser services for youth than there was in Richmond and Vancouver, and that’s the same
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health authority. So there’s not a good coordination or a system that’s consistent even within the health authority, let alone if you’re comparing other health authorities.

Rural, aboriginal — we heard that loud and clear. Certainly, aboriginal people have an extra dynamic that they have to deal with, with the issue between on and off reserve and the fact that the provincial services are essentially blocked to people that live on reserve. That’s a more holistic discussion with another level of government, but I think we have to make sure that it gets on their agenda as well. So we’re talking about coordination with other levels of government.

The last thing, I think — and others did mention this — is education. We’re talking about health, and we’re talking about MCFD, but the majority of the problems that were brought to us by individuals involved the education system.

The education system is where these kids are first presented. The teachers — they know. The counsellors — they know. But for whatever reason — they’re not trained; they don’t know how to access services; the services aren’t available — the case occurs. You have a child that comes into the school system at five and is not getting adequate help. They hit puberty at 15, and that’s where full-blown mental illness can occur. We did hear that story a lot.

The good news is: we heard that lots of kids are resilient. The psychiatrist that we had said that if these kids get help early, they’re resilient.

So going to your point, Darryl, it’s not just the right thing to do to help these kids to early access and assessment and help for them and their families and society, but there’s a huge financial implication here. If we get them early, we don’t see them later.

Like what Jennifer said about the Youth LAB, those people are not calculated in the system. They’re not showing up at emerg. They’re getting help before they need help, so to speak. There was this disjointedness because if they’re not seen and recognized in the school system, they show up in emerg. Depending on where they show up in emerg, the systems are totally different and inconsistent.

My four points, and they’re very high level, were the MCFD–Ministry of Health sort of issue about whether or not we want to investigate the ministry end of it; certainly, the Interior collaborative; and this disjointedness of differences in services no matter where you live — whether or not you’re rural, aboriginal, urban — or even differences in culture; and then the education system.

I wanted to bring to your attention one presenter — it was written — a school counsellor in West Van. This is West Vancouver, where you think that they have all the resources in the world. She said that the counsellors see these kids, usually grades 8 and 9. They’re going to choose their courses. They’ve all got their anxieties, all their pressures that all the teenagers have at these times. They come in, and they see the counsellors. They talk about their course selection for next year and what university or post-secondary, whatever they want to go.

After they keep coming back and they develop a relationship with these counsellors, often what happens is true mental illness comes out — anxiety, depression, eating disorders. Then here’s this counsellor who started out counselling a kid on where they were going to go to university when they graduated, and now they’re counselling them to prevent them from committing suicide. This is the evolution of child and youth mental health that I see in the school system, and we’ve got to get to these kids early.

My suggestion to you, the committee members, is that we should get the health authorities to come and talk to us about what they’re doing and what they think is the best thing that they’re doing and where they need help.

We should also get the ministries. I actually pinpointed five ministries: Health; MCFD; Education; Social Development; and JAG, Justice. Those are the five ministries that are significantly impacted by what we do or we don’t do with regard to child and youth mental health.

I don’t know whether or not you agree or disagree with that. I did talk to our vice-Chair as well as the Clerk that we would be able to do that and get people, not necessarily at the same time, to maybe come and present to us. Certainly, if we think the Interior collaborative is a good role model, then let’s find out more.

M. Karagianis: I think that that’s an interesting idea, for us to broaden maybe the next phase of this forum that we conducted. I think it’s really important for us to kind of conclude the first body of work, though. Our first endeavour was to go out and do these youth mental health hearings, and I think we need to conclude that report. I think that if the committee wants to take on kind of the next level, which is now to interface with the ministries and with some of these more successful models, like the Interior collaborative, that’s a great next phase of work.

But I think we owe it to all of the people who participated in this first forum to conclude this, to have a report. Certainly, I think one of the recommendations coming out of that is for this committee to pursue the next phase, which is then to have discussion with the various ministries involved, with various models that have worked really well that we could then…. Maybe the next phase of work that we undertake is to say a stronger recommendation on where youth mental health goes, whether it does start to move completely into the Health Ministry, as I believe it should. I think we need to make those explorations.

I’d like to see us conclude this piece of work, though, because I think it’s really important to everybody who participated in it and to all the families and all of the organizations that are waiting to see what this committee is going to produce. That body of work could then also really elevate and lay the basis for our discussions, then, with ministries and other organizations that have successful models. I’d just like to see us kind of have a little bit of
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closure on this portion of our work first and then use it as a stepping stone to a next phase or a next body of work.

D. Barnett: I would just like to say that I think, also, what we should be aware of — and maybe we should meet with them — is the Select Standing Committee on Health, to see what they’re doing.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): We are doing that. The Chairs and the vice-Chairs of both of those committees are meeting….

D. Barnett: Personally, I think the committee should meet with the Select Standing Committee on Health so that we can have an open discussion. I don’t know if that’s within our terms of reference, but I think that would be a good idea.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Thank you for those comments from the Chair. I think that there’s value in getting input from the health authorities and some of the other ministries, but I do share the concerns of my colleague. I think we need to…. It’s October 21 today. People presented to us. I think the last date was about June 11, and we’re nearing the end of the year. I’d like to see some conclusions to this first phase before we’re finished this session, for sure.

Looking at the health authorities, I was thinking about what the Chair and I had discussed, and I would prefer to invite them back when we actually have some more concrete focus around what we’re asking them rather than just a presentation again on the four points. I mean, we already had the collaborative present on the four points.

I do think there’s value in having other health authorities in, not simply just on the four questions that we had but more focused on what our recommendations are going to be out of this first phase.

M. Stilwell: I appreciate Maurine and Doug’s concern about the report honouring the consultations and so on. I think it’s important. However, the reason that I would support talking to the health authorities now, which does not preclude meeting with them again later, is that, obviously, the people who are working in mental health in the health authorities aim to provide early intervention, best practices. I mean, we are not creating something new.

They each have unique needs, and when we do talk to the ministries, whether it’s Health or Social Development, they will turn to the health authorities and say: “Well, show us something that says you’re doing these things.” I mean, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people working every day in B.C. to try and do the things we are thinking about. I just think for context, more than for building another piece of the report, it would be helpful.

How do they measure it? How do they know? You know, we had talked about the collective. People feel very strongly that it’s a fantastic program, and so we would think it natural to scale it up. But how do they know? How do they measure it? How do they know if people are getting better? How do we know the patients think that this is the most helpful thing they’ve had?

It’s not that I want to expand the report. I view it as context and knowledge for the committee as they draft the report.

D. Plecas: I guess I’m of two minds with this. On the one hand, I understand the value of having a number of different ministries contribute before we’re finished this first exercise and including the health authorities. At the same time, I agree with Doug and Maurine in that it may be more instructive to have this report finished and then be saying to those ministries and health authorities: “Okay. Now that you’ve seen this, now that you’ve seen these recommendations, do you or do you not agree, and what could you do in response?”

The second phase would take us in a more pointed, targeted way to where we ought to be. I think it would be a good way to separate it.

J. Rice: I think I just would like to echo Darryl’s comments. I do think that it’s really important to meet with those five ministries that you listed, but I’m really concerned about the time that would take. That’s a lot of ministries and would take months of organization. I definitely think that we should do that, but we could do it in two phases. I really like the idea of what Darryl just mentioned about presenting the report to them as the terms of reference for them to present to us.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): I just want to draw your attention to…. I don’t know if you remember what the committee, when they did their child poverty report, which I think everybody had a look at before…. They finished off the report. They did essentially exactly what we’ve done. In other words, they had people come and present, and then they had written submissions, etc.

By the way, the reason why we’re later than we had planned is we extended the deadline to the end of September. The reason why we extended the deadline to the end of September — and I did talk about this with then vice-Chair Carole James, and it was recommended that we do extend it — is because groups had approached us and said: “We didn’t get a notice. We didn’t get a chance to respond.” That’s the reason why we extended the deadline. It was to allow for the amount of submissions we got, which I think is a good thing, even though we did extend it and it’s taking us longer.

I just want to bring your attention to the committee decision June 2, 2010, and October 25, 2010. This is what their committee — by the way, I wasn’t on this committee — resolved after they completed their report:

“That the Chair and Deputy Chair meet to review what we have heard, to review the mandate of the committee and to explore options for the reporting to the Legislature. Further, the Chair and Deputy Chair will report back to the full committee at the earliest opportunity.”

Then in Victoria on October 25, the committee endorsed the recommendation of the Chair and the Deputy Chair “that an extended section on the poverty briefings be included” in its annual report with the following statement:

“Given the recurring themes and recommendations from the expert submissions, the committee is urging all Members of the Legislative Assembly to read all the related materials in this report in order to better understand the trends and for the Legislature to give serious consideration to the suggestions contained.”

If we are going to be doing something like that in this report as phase 1 — that’s what you’re suggesting — and then move to the second phase — publish it with this as the end sort of thing and then go back to the health authorities and the ministries, etc., like we discussed…. Is that a reasonable suggestion?

M. Karagianis: Well, I think that what this committee did with the poverty hearings was a separate body of work, and maybe we don’t have to replicate exactly the way that was reported out. I do think it’s important, though, that we…. We’ve got a majority, it sounds like, of the committee that are in support of the idea of finishing this report and then coming up with recommendations. The timing on when we deliver that to the Legislature I don’t think precludes any other work that we’re going to do in looking to other ministries or other discussions.

It doesn’t have to necessarily replicate step by step what you’ve said there. We’re going to do a report. We table it in the Legislature, the timing to be decided by the Chair and Deputy Chair.

I think the timing on this is important, because we have families that are looking to this committee to deliver on a report here sometime soon in the future. I just think that the other discussions we may have with other levels of government should be a separate body of work that we take on, based on what we come out of this with. I mean, I think we did meet with the Ministry of Children and Families after we’d done the poverty report as well, and there was some discussion about that. It was a basis for further discussion, for sure.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Darryl, you want to say something, and then I want to get Kate to give us some context.

D. Plecas: I want to say again that I think that having a discussion or submissions with a variety of different ministries and health authorities…. I’m suspecting that we’re not going to hear anything that we don’t already know.

I mean, we’ve heard so much from a variety of people who have connections in one fashion or another to each of these organizations, groups, entities. I just think it would be somewhat redundant. Again, the greater value is in saying, “Okay, now that you’ve heard it, what are you going to do?” and is probably going to lead us to a more constructive end. I just want to echo that again.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): The work that the research department, through Byron and his colleague Aaron, have undertaken to date is to really, on your behalf, review the 138 submissions that have come in to date.

Those documents, in addition to the discussion today and the conclusions that you have drawn on the main messages presented both within the written submissions that you’ve reviewed and the oral presentations that you heard, comprise a very good point at which we could have Byron develop a draft report for your review. It would be a very comprehensive summary of all that information through the various streams as it was presented to you and really encapsulate some of the very good conversation that I think was put forward today.

You may choose, once Byron’s had a chance to prepare something like that, to consider whether or not there are any recommendations at this stage that you want to include in that document or if it’s simply a summary of the good work done to date.

The other avenue that we’re also pursuing, just to ensure that as much information that your committee has received is put in the public domain…. We’re taking steps in our office to ensure that the written submissions by the organizations are made available on the committee’s website so that if there was an interest, as the previous committee noted, to encourage other members of the Legislature, other interested groups, to review the written submissions, they would be, if you agree, put in the public domain.

We’re also trying to contact a lot of the individuals who shared their stories with you through the written submission process, just to confirm that they, too, are comfortable with their stories being put in the public domain. Although we have a privacy policy that is available on the committee’s website, because of the very personal nature of some of the circumstances that were shared with you, we want to do our due diligence to make sure that people are comfortable with us proceeding down that path.

The transcripts of your public discussions in June, the written submissions that you’ve received and the discussion today I think provide a very wholesome — a very holistic, as you called it — overview of the current status of the challenges in British Columbia with youth mental health. It may give Byron sufficient direction and information to craft a draft report for your review in the near future.
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D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): When we started this process, I believe that what we were doing was collecting information from front-line people who have experienced the system and front-line people who are working in the system, so I think it’s important to reflect that before we go and then ask the bureaucracy what they think about what we heard. I think it’s incumbent on what we were tasked with, which is to present publicly what we’ve heard from the front-line people and families and people accessing the system.

I would say rather than just a recommendation that everybody should go read what we heard…. I’d like to hear from the committee some actual draft recommendations that we can then go to the various health authorities and ministries with, rather than just leaving it more of an open discussion. I agree that we have heard what the gaps are and what the challenges are. We need to reflect what we heard from the people on the ground in some draft recommendations and then go to the health authorities and the ministries.

M. Karagianis: If I heard Kate properly, the recommendation at this point is that we move through into a draft report and that that gets brought back here, where we may then add further commentary around recommendations if they haven’t been self-evident in that. I’m happy to support that idea.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Certainly, I think that encapsulates what Byron and I are comfortable with — supporting the ongoing work on the committee in terms of that scope. It would really be a focus, at this stage, on the conclusions, many of which are shared amongst the members, that were articulated today.

If you want to take it further to recommendations at that stage, that would be a decision that could be made at a subsequent meeting. But I think there would be a good summary of work done to date. Even just the commonalities you’ve identified, the theme that you’ve all identified would provide us with some strong conclusions in that report, even if you didn’t proceed to the recommendation stage quite yet. But we’ll leave it in your good hands at that stage.

M. Karagianis: May I just ask one further question? What kind of timeline do you think we’re talking about? I don’t want to put a lot of pressure on Byron and his shop, but I’m just thinking that while we’re all here during the sitting, hopefully if we can get to the point of reviewing the draft and maybe discussing recommendations further and stuff while we’re all still gathered here, that would be convenient. But I don’t want to put a lot of pressure on Byron. It’s a big body of work.

B. Plant: I would think that within this sitting we could manage it, probably November.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Byron has actually done a very good job thus far behind the scenes in monitoring this and in trying to anticipate where the discussion might go today.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): If everybody’s okay with that, then what we basically want to do now is set up another meeting with the committee to review the draft of the draft report that Byron is in the process of putting together, in addition to the conclusions that have been discussed by all of us here. How does that sound?

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Good, thank you. So should we just get together with the Chair and the vice-Chair as far as setting up another meeting, or how do you want to do this?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): That might be ideal. We will review the very full and growing list of scheduled committee meetings for the upcoming weeks and ensure that we can have something to you I’m hoping by early November, but I know that Byron is also the lead researcher on the Select Standing Committee on Finance, which is working on its budget consultation report.

We will coordinate that, but I’m hopeful, because of the good work already done to date and I think some of the emerging themes identifying so many commonalities today, that we’ll be well positioned in early November.

We’ll work with the Chair and the Deputy Chair and ensure it works for all members’ schedules.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Okay, that’s good. Is there any other business? We do have that other meeting that we have to book with regards to the rep’s outstanding reports as well as the terms of reference, but we will work that, again, through our respective calendars.

Access to on-line versions of the report of proceedings (Hansard)
and webcasts of committee proceedings is available on the Internet.

Chair:	* Jane Thornthwaite (North Vancouver–Seymour BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	* Doug Donaldson (Stikine NDP)
Members:	* Donna Barnett (Cariboo-Chilcotin BC Liberal)
	* Mike Bernier (Peace River South BC Liberal)
	Carole James (Victoria–Beacon Hill NDP)
	* Maurine Karagianis (Esquimalt–Royal Roads NDP)
	* John Martin (Chilliwack BC Liberal)
	* Dr. Darryl Plecas (Abbotsford South BC Liberal)
	* Jennifer Rice (North Coast NDP)
	* Dr. Moira Stilwell (Vancouver-Langara BC Liberal)
	* denotes member present
Clerk:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd
Committee Staff:	Byron Plant (Committee Research Analyst)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
CHILDREN AND YOUTH