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Jane Dean joined the Courts Academy as Coordinator of the deputy
sheriffs program in 1999. She was hired in 1989 as a deputy sheriff, to
work at Vancouver Provincial Court. With a black belt in karate and
training in hapkido and boxing, she taught Academy students force options
for eight years, the only female performing that role. (As a deputy,
she might have had to apply arm locks to resisting prisoners but never
had to wield a firearm.) Now as Program Coordinator, she oversees all
the training of recruits and development of the sessional instructors—
about three dozen of them on the rolls, including seconded deputy sheriffs
and supervisors.

The Courts Academy has a rigorous instructor-development process.
“In firearms, for example,’ Dean says, “just because you can shoot doesn't
mean that you can teach. And so we developed an instructor training and
development program. We have skills testing in the various disciplines, a
knowledge test, and an instructor aptitude test where they give a presen-
tation to see if they have a basic ability to deliver information—we know
that we have to train them further. And then we also do an interview for
behavioural competencies and a past work performance process where we
interview their supervisors.”

Passing those tests, potential instructors receive generic instructional
skills and then train as instructors in their specialties. “Anybody whos ever
gone through this is just a phenomenal instructor. We've moved away from
instructors just standing up there talking, to tying in the theory with role-
playing scenarios that have really practical applications.”

or those in the twilight zone between being charged and tried, the

deputy sheriff often represents the B.C. legal system. In Esquimalt,

that would be Shayne Gorman, superintendent of the Sheriff's Office
for Southern Vancouver Island, who is the embodiment of the Justice Insti-
tute ideal. He is the kind of person who brings leadership skills absorbed
at the JIBC, where Gorman has taught in the Deputy Sheriff Employment
Readiness program over the years as well as force options and firearms as
used in escort procedures. Once a Shayne Gorman grows roots, he contrib-
utes community-building ideas, which, combined with professional skills
learned at the Institute, make his own neighbourhood safer.

“T have trouble explaining to people outside our system why we do all
the things we do,” he says. “We make tons of sacrifices that nobody's even
heard of. Even my wife doesn’t understand—or, at least, she didn’t—until
my daughter, Michelle, was tipped that on one of those personal websites,
there was this e-mail addressed to her about her father. Me.”

Steve to Michelle: May I ask a favour. Can you say thank you to your dad for
me. Many years ago I was in a holding cell waiting for a judge and your dad

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