Janet Smellie
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 24/99) - The territorial government has re-thought its recent cuts to the Family Support program and come through with another $50,000.

The program, run by the Yellowknife Women's Centre, faced possible closure last week when the centre learned that the GNWT had slashed the funding from $175,000 to $75,000.

"When you lose $100,000 it's very devastating," Arlene Hache, the centre's executive director told Yellowknifer last week.

"You can't recover from that easily."

Hache immediately wrote a letter of complaint to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment after she heard about the cutbacks.

She said she received news on Tuesday that the department was able to come up with an additional $50,000.

"It was cut to the bone. I wrote them a letter and told them these cuts were not acceptable and we would have to re-think running the program at all."

Under the program, which the centre started running last year, 15 families have been able to receive some much-needed help.

"The program is not meant to be a band-aid, it looks at every member of the family and looks at what their needs are, takes the needs the family, identifies and work on a problem-solving plan to meet the terms of the long-run. We were hoping to develop it into a program, similar to one in the States, where resources are dedicated to families who need help for a longer term. The success rate for that program is really, really high, because it's not a band-aid."

Even with the government's change of heart, the Family Support program is left with $50,000 less than last year, which still concerns Hache.

"It will let us maintain a service, but won't involve training like the first year. It puts us in a place where we can maintain a service, but not grow."

Part of Hache's plans, that will now definitely have to be put on hold, include hiring a qualified therapist to be a team member for the program.