Public Accounts committee  We're just finishing up research on the mental health needs scale. An early review of the research shows that the mental health needs scale has both really good inter-rater reliability and also good convergent validity to other more broadly available scales in the community. Based on that research with our population, and comparing it with scales that are used in the community, we're showing really good validity for this scale.

Public Accounts committee  When the Office of the Auditor General came in to look at how we prepare women for release, we were just finalizing the rollout of our first-ever electronic medical record. Until 2016-17, we were a purely paper-based system. The electronic medical record is now fully rolled out at all institutions.

Public Accounts committee  My apologies. I probably wasn't clear in my terminology. We've based our mental health service delivery model on the World Health Organization's optimal model of mental health care. That model speaks to providing self-care, primary care, and then what we call “intermediate” care.

Public Accounts committee  In response to the Auditor General's report, and to continually improve services for women under our care, we revamped our computerized mental health screening system so that we can ensure that we are flagging the women with the most significant needs. This includes women who were hospitalized just before incarceration, who were recently diagnosed, or who have lifetime history of suicide attempts or self-injury.

Public Accounts committee  Certainly, distances are a challenge for the women under our care. Trying to keep the women within their region is, for some women, certainly important. If you are from Atlantic Canada, it's better to be at Nova than to be at our psychiatric hospital in the Prairies. In addition, the women offenders sector has worked to improve the use of technology to facilitate contact between families and their incarcerated family members.