School Resource Officers
School Resource Officers are community-based police officers with special training who help foster a safe and caring learning environment by prioritizing prevention and intervention over enforcement. Edmonton Catholic Schools currently has 13 SROs serving junior and senior high school students in 17 schools.
The SRO program is a community-based, collaborative partnership between the Edmonton Police Service and Edmonton Catholic Schools.
Who is my School Resource Officer?
Constable Robert Farbin
Const. Rob Farbin is the School Resource Officer for St. Nicholas Catholic Junior High School and St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Elementary/Junior High School. Const. Farbin has been a Police Officer since 2005 and his wealth of experience and knowledge helps make the school communities he works in a safe and caring place of learning for both students and staff. Const. Rob Farbin’s impact on the school communities of which he is a part of is beyond measure. Not only does Const. Farbin help to maintain the safety of his schools, actively engage with the school community, and ensures the health and well-being of the students by helping to coach the students in physical fitness and life skills, he also provides educational opportunities to classes (including several feeder schools) ranging from topics such as safe social media use, drugs/alcohol, hate crimes, traffic safety and healthy relationships. Const. Farbin is active throughout the school community, enriching the lives of the students, building relationships not only with the students, but school administration and is always willing to stop, listen, and chat.
Contact Const. Farbin by email at Robert.Farbin.ta@ecsd.net
What is the role of a School Resource Officer?
The primary responsibility of the School Resource Officer is to work in collaboration with school administration, the school’s multi-disciplinary team, and families to support student safety, growth, and well-being.
ECSD schools benefit from multi-disciplinary teams of which our SROs play an important part. SROs work with a variety of team members that exist within our schools including:
- Student Services Staff
- Grade Coordinators
- Emotional Behavior Specialists
- Family School Liaison Workers
- Psychologists/Clinical Social Workers
- Mental Health Therapists
School Resource Officers contribute to the safety and well-being of students in multiple ways:
- Positive Youth Engagement: School Resource Officers play an important role within the school setting, including organizing and participating in student-led or school activities, providing counselling, mediation and mentoring, and helping to connect students to school and community resources. School Resource Officers are available throughout the day, between classes, during lunch, and before-and-after school, connecting with students beyond the classroom.
- School Safety: SROs work to ensure the safety of students and staff, daily, from planning and executing lockdown drills throughout the school year, to making themselves available for individual or group discussions with students or staff on the topics of school safety, security, and violence. While they are in constant communication with school administrations and staff, they are also the first line of crime prevention in school, helping to deter crime-related incidents, such as bullying, graffiti and vandalism, harassment or stalking, theft, or use of weapons or threats. School safety is not just a response to crisis situations. It is the daily impact of having caring adults who are responsive to a broad range of student and family concerns and how they can support them.
- Resource: SROs offer additional resources to students and families. They can answer questions about law enforcement or assist them to get the resources that they need.
- Education: Working cooperatively with school administrators, staff, students, families, and the community, SROs proactively identify and address school concerns or problems through structured class presentations. These awareness and education sessions are created on a variety of topics (e.g. drug use, healthy relationships and safe driving) and are all tailored to fit the student population based on direct experience of the SRO within the school setting.
Diversion: With their knowledge of the criminal justice system, SROs collaborate with school administration to come up with alternative diversion measures for situations that otherwise may have involved the criminal justice system. This could be anything from completing restorative work around the school, working out with the resource officer, or assisting teachers with extra-curricular activities.