SIFC program receives national accreditation

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The Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (SIFC) has a lot to celebrate these days about its Environmental Health and Science program. The bachelor of applied science degree program, which has been offered at SIFC for four years, will see its first class of students graduate this semester, and has just received accreditation from the Canadian Institute of Public Health Inspectors.

With the accreditation, announced April 26, the SIFC becomes just the fifth post secondary institute in Canada certified by the Canadian Institute of Public Health Inspectors' Board of Certification, and the only one in Saskatchewan. Other certified institutes in Canada are Ryerson Polytechnical University in Toronto, British Columbia Institute of Technology in Burnaby, Concordia University College of Alberta in Edmonton, and University College of Cape Breton in Sydney, N.S.

According to Herman Michell, acting head of the Science department at the SIFC, the process involved in getting the Environmental Health and Science program accredited was a very rigorous one.

"There's a booklet of objectives that the Canadian Institute of Public Health Inspectors have identified as the skills that students need in order to become public health inspectors. And so we had to implement all those objectives in the courses that we offer in the program. And the reason why that process exists is so students are learning the objectives as they go along in the program. And then once they are done their degree, they have to take an examination by the Canadian Institute of Public Health Inspectors, which at that point, if they pass the exam, they become certified public health inspectors."

The four students who make up the program's first graduating class are certainly ready to take advantage of the opportunities provided them through the program's recent accreditation, with all four already scheduled to write their Certificate in Public Health Inspection exams.

Although accreditation of SIFC's Environmental Health and Science Program now makes it easier for students wanting to get into public health inspection as a career, there are numerous other career paths graduates of the program can follow, Michell said.

"Certainly, there are other career options, because the environment is a very broad area. And so there are a number of areas that students can go into after they've finished their degree. But the public health inspector aspect of it is the icing on the cake. So they can become environmental health practitioners, they could work in government, industry, and any area of the environment," he said.

"And right now there's a shortage of public health inspectors across Canada. Especially in Saskatchewan, because a lot of them had to go to Ontario and B.C. to get their credentials. But now that we have this in Saskatchewan, students don't have to leave the province in order to get the degree."

The program is offered to both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students, Michell said, although being offered at a First Nations operated institute, the First Nations perspective is incorporated into the program curriculum.

"That's the other icing on the cake. And that is, perhaps, what makes it unique from the other programs that exist in Canada. And that is, at the early part of the program, students have an opportunity to learn about First Nations issues, languages, the history, the value system. Everything that is required if students were to work in the First Nations context," he said.

"It's a very compact program. So they learn things like environmental health and communications, international health issues, food hygiene and protection, land use management, water and wastewater management, environmental health law and ethics, shelter environment, pest control, environmental toxicology, solid and hazardous waste management. There's a health research project involved in the fourth year, human environmental impact, community health and epidemiology, environmenal economics and community development, health administration. So those are some of the courses. It's a really compact program.

"It's very practical based as well. The students go on field trips, they go into restaurants, and food processing plants, and thing like that, where they actually shadow with a public health inspector. And so they're able to learn the practical aspects of doing public health inspection," Michell said of the program.

"I believe there's a strong demand for health professionals in First Nations communities period. Because, for one thing, of the health transfer process happening, The government is giving more and more responsibility and control to the First Nations to develop and manage their own health programs, environment being part of that process. So that's one of the biggest things.

"The other thing is that in regards to the environment, First Nations people have been strongly connected to the environment since time immemorial. Because we regard the environment and the earth as the foundation for our cultures and our languages and our value systems, and all those things that make us who we are as Aboriginal peoples. And that is our strongest connection to the environment."