Certificate program a success

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The Aboriginal Police Studies certificate program offered by Grant MacEwan College can be qualified as a great success, except for the fact that nobody knows too much about it.

Four of the 10 students enrolled in the first group that took the nine-month program were accepted by the RCMP to take its training program in Regina. Two went to Aboriginal police force training, also in Regina, with another one going to Regina at a later date. One is in final interview stage with the Edmonton Police Service. One works in corrections at the Stan Daniels Centre. Eight passed the RCMP cognitive test or the Alberta Solicitor General policing test and all eight passed the RCMP physical test. Not a bad record for a program that saw only its second intake of students in September.

The program was initiated after concerns were raised by the RCMP that Aboriginal people were applying to the force and taking the exams, but not being successful. There was no place for applicants to turn to upgrade the skills needed to pass the tests, so they were left only to try again the following year.

The Aboriginal Police Studies program developed specific courses to deal with the RCMP's concern. And the program Grant MacEwan developed not only gets applicants through the door, but helps them cope with the rigorous training of the next stages they'll face.

"Once you've been accepted [to the RCMP], you then go to Regina," said Aboriginal Police Studies chair David Patterson. "You go into a troop and you do exactly what any other individual applying for the RCMP is going to do. You are going to take the same courses, and the same exams, and that's why we've put in law courses [in the Aboriginal Police Studies program], we've put in investigative courses that we felt were going to assist our students when they got there. It's one thing to get you through the door and say 'Thank you very much, good luck.' We felt it quite important to do that..."

The situation with many forces is that in order to qualify for employment with them, an applicant must either have two years of post-secondary training or two years of continuous full-time employment."

"The students in the first class of the Aboriginal Police Studies program were more mature, said David Patterson, and had the life experience to qualify as an applicant, but not the physical or cognitive skills to pass the exams.

Saying that however, a critical part of the success of the program is that it requires Grade 12 or a GED. Potential students to the Aboriginal Police Studies program must have a final English 30 mark of 65 per cent or better, or 75 per cent or better in English 33. Students who don't meet that standard can do a skills appraisal course at the college, Patterson said. Also, before students are accepted to the Aboriginal Police Studies program they have to complete a physical fitness test.

"Now, this is not to the same standard as the police requires by any stretch," said Patterson about the fitness test. "What it does is just show that the student is capable of getting there."

Potential students are then required to do a career profile, where they answer a series of questions that tell a bit about the individual and why he or she wants to become a police officer.

"We have set our standards high," said Patterson. "We want the Grade 12. We want the English. We want the physical there... and to a certain degree the proof is in the pudding. Yes, we are setting our standards high and are limiting our numbers, but the ones that have come in have shown success."

The course can accommodate about 20 students per intake.

One of the courses offered by the program is Police Career and Lifestyle Management. What that deals with, said Patterson, are concepts of health, wellness and their importance to policing. The course provides practical strategies for developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle and strategies for fitness standards-diet, nutrition, stress an time management.