Research projects benefiting public safety and policing

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on January 24, 2025.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

The Southern Alberta Council of Public Affairs featured Kirsten Fantazir, president’s applied research chair at Lethbridge Polytechnic in a talk on “how can we make a difference in our community with evidence based public safety projects?”
During her presentation Thursday, Fantazir talked about the various research projects taking place at Lethbridge Polytechnic and the many partner agencies they work with, not only locally but provincially as well as other provinces.
“We have a lot on the go and so I will try to share a little bit about that. The one thing I’m really proud of though, is the community organizations we work within Lethbridge, we do a lot of work with the Chinook Sexual Assault Centre as well as Chinook Child and Youth Advocacy centre,” said Fantazir.
She said the centre came to them for help with technology facilitated gender based violence and right now her team is developing a prevalence survey, because the centre doesn’t actually know how many youth in our area are facing this.
“Their current surveys that they’re asking are not geared towards online sextortion. So, we’ve created a tool, we’re working with that partner and eventually we’re hoping by June that will actually have a survey method where people can actually track some of this information,” said Fantazir.
 She added that with the Chinook Sexual Assault Centre, they are in the process of putting a grant together to help with sexual violence or hazing in sports.
 “Which is something that’s rocked our community in the last year or so. I have my kids go to Chinook High School and I think most of us were aware what happened there. So, Kristine Cassie came to us and said we know this is an issue,” said Fantazir.
 She said the first thing they did for them as they conducted a literature review to find out what else is going on across Canada and what are some of the recommendations.  
 “So now we’re in that stage, we’re trying to action something for our community so sports athletes and coaches can get a little bit more informed on what is and what isn’t assault,” said Fantazir.
 She said they are looking into what people can you do if they see something happening that they are uncomfortable with.
 “Some uncomfortable topics, but things we do need to talk about,” said Fantazir.
Other projects that Fantazir talked about included one looking at how to engage our youth and get them excited about future career possibilities in public safety.
“There’s a lot of myths around policing, corrections and courts. A lot of miss-perpetuated on television shows. You made even heard of things like the CSI Effect and that’s people that watched shows and think that you solve the case in 50 minutes,” said Fantazir.
 She explained that one of the things they are doing is working a lot with Calgary Police Service as they have a “be an officer for a day” program that they run at Heritage Park.
 “They actually bring youth in, and they actually give them experiences in all the different units of the policing world. And then after that, a lot of those youth end up deciding, yeah, I want to go into this, or I want to go into a subfield of public safety. So that’s one of the projects we have going.”
Another project they are working on that is really near and dear to Fantazir’s heart is one involving the RCMP and the University of Regina where they focus on Post Traumatic Stress Injuries (PTSI).
“This usually comes before PTSD, which means it’s a little bit more severe. So how can we help police, but not just police, the civilians, the people that are working in that world who experience and read and take in information during the day that can be very difficult to deal with. How can we help with that?” said Fantazir.
 She said they are really honored to be part of a bigger study that the RCMP is doing, and they are trying to make it happen for Lethbridge and for our first responders.
Fantazir also shared with SACPA members projects that have been covered in previously published Herald articles that can be found at:

https://lethbridgeherald.com/news/lethbridge-news/2023/12/21/college-research-project-to-support-marginalized-populations/

 https://lethbridgeherald.com/news/lethbridge-news/2024/03/23/virtual-reality-may-help-screen-prospective-police-officers/

 https://lethbridgeherald.com/news/lethbridge-news/2023/12/23/college-leveraging-tech-tools-in-research-projects/

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