On the road to wellness
Community input wanted on board policies

Sarah Holland
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 14/00) - Yellowknife is yet another step closer to implementing community-based wellness programs.

The Yellowknife Health and Social Services Board has developed its mandate for programs ranging from child protection and family support to addictions and mental health services.

Each policy includes the required result, target group and community representatives to be consulted.

For example, the required result for the policy on child protection reads: "Children are free from neglect, physical, emotional, social and sexual abuse."

With regard to the programs themselves, the board is taking a hands-off approach, according to chairperson Ruth Spence.

"We're working on the Carver method of governance, which a lot of boards are doing now ... we hire one CEO and this person hires the staff who run the programs."

But before the programs can begin, all policies and a mission statement must be in place.

And while the goals may be clear, they aren't official yet.

"We have developed 39 policies for carrying out programs. Thirteen of those are results policies that we have sent out to 65 organizations, including all the MLAs," said Spence.

"We want them to read the policies and see if (they agree that) this is what we want to accomplish."

The board's new policies are also available from the Jan Sterling Centre, so the public can also play a role in developing what the goals of community assistance will be.

"We want people to comment on things like are the policies strong enough and should they include other aspects?" added Spence.

"We will set up a schedule to monitor the programs and get the results we want."