By Angela Brown

Students make the grade in emergency services training

Jul 7, 2017 | 2:00 PM

A group of students from North Battleford Comprehensive High School and John Paul II Collegiate celebrated their success after completing their Emergency Services Responder Training.

A total of 23 students graduated from the Level 10 course in a special ceremony at North Battleford fire department on June 26.

They received training cadet uniforms to wear to public events while taking part in the course, as well as certificates during the graduation ceremony.

“We’re very happy with the results,” said N.B. fire department deputy fire chief Trevor Brice. “They exceeded our expectations. To see the students all decked out in their new uniforms, and the pride that they had in it, and the pride that their parents had in the students was worth the being there to see that.”  

As part of the course work, students gained some skills and knowledge about community safety and also acquired CPR, and First Aid training, as well as some ground-search-and-rescue training. The 20-week, 150-hour course was held from February to June.

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North Battleford is only the second community in the province to provide the training.

The class is offered jointly through the N.B. fire department and the area school divisions. N.B. community safety coordinator Herb Sutton was also involved, as well as WPD Ambulance, RCMP and the Saskatchewan Office of the Fire Commissioner.

A special committee was originally created to plan for the course. Funding for the emergency services course was provided by a number of different partners, including donations from local businesses.

“It was a great community effort,” Brice said. He added the City of North Battleford provided a classroom for instruction and helped with some other resources. 

He said the students learn invaluable skills from taking the course.

“They learn basic emergency response skills – basic firefighting drills,” Brice said. “It’s a base-level from which they can start building.”

Police also visited to offer students information on the judicial system.   

Brice said he hopes the program might also encourage students to pursue careers as firefighters or in emergency response after they finish high school.

Brent Just, a teacher at North Battleford Comprehensive High School, who is also a volunteer firefighter in Langham, provided instruction on firefighter level one training.

“It will be a benefit to them even if they don’t pursue a career in that. It will be an asset to them wherever they end up in life, in whatever communities they end up living in,” Just said. “I think it was a good success and I’m looking forward to next year.”

N.B. city manager Jim Puffalt who was the master of ceremony at the graduation said the course offered youth in the community “something positive to be a part of,” while adding they are “becoming strong citizens” in the community by taking part in the training.

Plans are to offer Emergency Services Responder Training again in the next school year for the introductory Level 10 course for a new crop of students from North Battleford Comprehensive High School, John Paul II Collegiate and Sakewew High School, and also an advanced Level 20 course for the students who completed the introductory-level course.  

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW