Folk-Fest-friendly security training opens up career opportunities

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This article was published 17/06/2015 (3804 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you had asked Stephanie Smith what she wanted to be when she grew up, she wouldn’t have said “security guard.”

Now, she’s looking at job postings in the field.

Smith, a 27-year-old single mother of two, is one of 19 new volunteers who have graduated from the Winnipeg Folk Festival’s security guard training program, which equips volunteers to provide security at the festival but also gives them skills and qualifications to seek employment as security guards. In addition to 150 hours of security training, participants can earn certificates in nine different areas, including first aid and CPR, non-violent crisis intervention and consensual conflict resolution. Seven graduates so far have gone on to find work in security.

Smith’s young sons will be starting school in the fall, and she’s eager to re-enter the workforce. “When they were younger, I was so determined to go to school and get a job,” she says. But balancing school, work and her duties as a mom was difficult. Daycare was expensive, and Smith wanted to spend time with her children. She is currently on social assistance as an interim solution. “I save as much as I can,” she says. But Smith wants to be able to support herself and her family with a fulfilling career, so when she came across the Winnipeg Folk Festival’s security guard training program during a visit to Youth Employment Services (YES), she jumped at the opportunity.

Launched in 2014, the program was developed by the Winnipeg Folk Festival in partnership with YES and is delivered by Paul Laporte, the festival’s protection and wellness co-ordinator. While the Folk Festival had a volunteer Site Safety crew, it primarily contracted outside services to handle security. There were complaints. “We found that they weren’t a great cultural fit,” Laporte says.

In other words, festivalgoers don’t like having their buzz harshed by unsmiling, arms-folded tough guys, hardened by years of barking orders at crowd surfers during Metallica concerts.

So, Laporte had an idea: why couldn’t the Folk Festival train its own security guards? He beefed up his own training, taking the Province of Manitoba’s Security Guard Training Program through Manitoba Justice. Forty hours of training is the provincial standard for security guards, but Laporte wanted to offer volunteers an added-value course with transferable — and employable — certifications.

Mary Van Eerd-Cook, 59, has attended the Winnipeg Folk Festival for 15 years and volunteered for nine. She was on the Site Safety crew and decided to enrol in the security guard training program, graduating last year. She’s particularly grateful for the opportunity to build on her conflict resolution skills. “Those weren’t things I had in my tool kit,” she says. She works in community development and health care, areas in which her new skills are readily applicable.

As a festivalgoer, she responded to the program’s training and security delivery ethos, which focuses on problem resolution as opposed to enforcement. The volunteers don’t wear police-style uniforms. They wear the same shirts and vests as all other Folk Festival volunteers, save for an ID patch which is required by Manitoba Justice. “We try not to have an authority image,” Laporte says.

“We still follow all the rules, but the approach is de-escalation and respect,” Van Eerd-Cook says.

The festival itself offers valuable opportunity to practise and hone new skills in the field, which gives the program’s graduates an advantage. “If you’re unprepared for a situation, it’s more likely that you’ll be unnerved by that situation,” Van Eerd-Cook says. She feels much more confident in herself and her abilities.

As for Smith, she’s excited and nervous about this year’s Winnipeg Folk Festival, which begins July 9. This will not only be her first time volunteering at the festival, it’ll be her first time attending it. “From what I’ve heard, it’s really family-friendly,” she says. “I’m excited to hear some new music.”

She’s also excited for the future. “Having these certificates opens up a lot of doors,” she says. “I never thought of myself as a security guard before, but now, definitely.” Post-secondary education is still a dream of hers, but she says she feels more empowered to enter the workforce having gone through the program.

“I have so many more opportunities,” she says.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca