A new Justice and Fitness Training Centre designed to help prepare students, graduates and the general public for career-specific fitness testing officially opened at the Welland Campus in January, and it’s already attracting attention for its innovation and convenience.
The centre informally opened its doors on November 21. It’s one of 20 Dream Big Fund projects that has so far shared in more than $1.5 million in funding to continue NC on its path of being even more welcoming, trailblazing and innovative.
“Niagara College is unique in the fact we offer occupational testing and practice sessions for anyone interested in a career in law enforcement,” said Sonya Siebert, Justice Studies Lab Manager. “These sessions allow a potential candidates the opportunity to complete the mandatory law enforcement fitness tests, including the PARE (Physical Abilities Requirement Evaluation), the PIN (Police Fitness Test), the PREP (Physical Readiness Evaluation for Police), and the FITCO (Fitness Test for Correctional Services of Canada).”
By providing practice testing, Siebert said individuals planning on pursuing a career in law enforcement can familiarize themselves ahead of time for the physical fitness assessments they’ll be required to successfully complete for employment, so they know how they measure up.
“There is anxiety in completing the fitness testing,” Siebert said. “They can come here, run through the fitness testing and find out exactly where they are at–like a practice run. Our sessions are conducted in a controlled environment, and during the session our qualified staff will explain the test protocols and demonstrate the requirements.”
Anyone in the process of applying for a career in law enforcement–whether it be a Municipal or Provincial Policing Service, Correctional Services of Canada or Canada Border Services Agency–can go to the NC School of Justice & Fitness website and click on the Justice & Fitness Training Centre link. From there they’ll be connected to the JaneApp booking portal. Users can sign up for a practice or testing session.
The Justice and Fitness Training Centre also has an interactive simulator with a floor-to-ceiling screen that immerses the user in a scenario so they can learn about judgement and police use of force options.
“It plays out a scenario that, as a police officer, you may respond to,” Siebert said. “For example, you may go to a domestic call and people on the screen are talking. The instructor controls the outcome of the scenario on the screen. The video players may comply, or the situation may escalate, maybe they’re going to attack you. How are you going to respond to what you see before you?”
Siebert, a former OPP Sergeant, said she was required to undergo scenario training with a simulator as part of her job, so she understands the benefits of it.
“You can make a mistake in front of the simulator and learn from it, and not out on the street because you received that training.”
Students are eager to see the simulator up and running and book sessions using it, she added. A Police Use of Force training instructor has already been hired to work with students on the simulator. “It provides students with another training opportunity for a career in law enforcement.”
Meanwhile, on the Fitness side, Siebert said the Advanced Fitness Lab offers V02 Max testing, muscular strength and endurance assessments, body composition analysis and resting metabolic rate.
“There’s a few things (in the works),” Seibert said of the lab. “It’s going to expand and it’s going to grow. For instance, we have a driving simulator in another room which is an exceptional piece of equipment that can be utilized to help people learn how to drive. That, in my mind, speaks to our international students that come here that don’t have an Ontario driver’s license. They can take a course in driving–maybe just the rules of the road–and we’re in the process of developing those kinds of programs.”
Opportunity knocked
Sandro D’Annunzio, Associate Dean, School of Justice and Fitness Studies, said creating a fitness testing facility for students, alumni and the public wasn’t a new idea. After all, NC has seven fitness labs with state-of-the-art equipment. So when the Dream Big Fund was introduced in 2022-2023, he knew it was the right time to make it happen.
“At certain times of the year, (the labs) are underutilized, so we thought: ‘How can we use them, but at the same time serve students?’ Alumni came to mind first and foremost, and on the justice side, all the jobs–police, corrections, customs immigration,” D’Annunzio said.
Individuals planning on applying for a career in law enforcement can access the Justice and Fitness Training Centre to practice physical fitness assessments that they’ll be required to successfully complete for employment.
For some graduates, they don’t get on with a police force for a couple of years and the fitness level they were at while they attended college isn’t the same.
“We try to help the alumni and current students,” D’Annunzio said. “This is part of that idea where we can offer testing at a reasonable rate (and) get these students back, get them tested so that they’re prepared for what we prepared them for originally.”
D’Annunzio said the programs in the School of Justice and Fitness have traditionally had a symbiotic relationship; students enrolled in Justice programs have benefitted from working with Fitness students, who in turn learn by working with Justice students in need of training.
And word of the fitness lab is spreading.
“We’ve gotten the word out there. Partners are starting to come to use our facilities–police, corrections, customs–because they’ve got their own people in the same boat where they’re still struggling to pass different testing areas,” D’Annunzio said. “It’s kind of grown from there and now we’ve got even more offerings in the works based on some of our equipment.”
D’Annunzio said the goal is for the facility to become self-sustaining by generating enough money to pay the project manager’s wage, plus the trainers’ wages, because funding through the Dream Big Fund ends on Dec. 31, 2024.
“Money is not our primary goal,” he said. “I think our primary goal is to help service our students, but also the marketing aspect to get people in the college. No one knows what we have, but if I can get them in here, they’re pretty impressed once they’re here.”
The fitness training centre was fully launched by March 31, and the launch of the driving simulator will follow in June. From there, new ideas will be explored.
“It’s evolving,” D’Annunzio said. “I’ve got a huge facility here and (we’re) coming up with ideas: using VR equipment, offering courses on things like empathy training and homelessness. I had 20 different ideas come forward. We started with the physical side and now we’re getting into the more intellectual side of it.
More information on the practice and testing sessions offered at the new Justice & Fitness Training Centre can be found on the centre’s website. Sessions can be booked online through the JaneApp booking portal, which can be accessed on the website or by downloading the app onto a mobile device.
