Diploma in Community and Justice Services is a diploma in Social & Cultural Studies programme taught at Centennial College in Toronto, Canada. The programme runs for 4 semesters, delivered on campus. Teaching is in English. Tuition for international students is CAD 18,005 per year (CAD 2,775 per year for local students).
The diploma builds expert knowledge and practical skills for working in settings that address at-risk youth and adults, people involved in the criminal justice system, and those in rehabilitation programmes, with emphasis on case management and security skills, group dynamics, treatment approaches and practical communication, alongside prevention, intervention and rehabilitative strategies and programme development and facilitation. Students complete more than four hundred hours of placement across schools, courthouses, community centres, group homes and jails in the Greater Toronto Area. Graduates are trained to apply safety and security techniques across institutional, residential and community settings, intervene with individual clients and groups to address barriers to inclusion, observe and record client behaviour in line with legal requirements, manage conflict and crisis situations, draw on knowledge of corrective-action history and models, spanning detention through rehabilitation and reintegration, to inform decisions, and assess client needs shaped by factors such as addictions, mental health and other social circumstances, working collaboratively with community partners to address gaps in services.
Requirements
Admission Requirements: This diploma requires an Ontario Secondary School Diploma or equivalent, or mature-applicant status at 19 or older, plus Grade 12 English at the C or U level, or equivalent, or Centennial's own English Admission Test. Before attending field placement, most host agencies require a police reference check (CPIC) including a Vulnerable Sector Screen, a standard first-aid certificate, and/or a medical certificate attesting to good health; certain criminal convictions can prevent placement and, as a result, program completion. The program page defers its general English-proficiency standard to Centennial's institution-wide requirement, which for certificate and diploma programs sets IELTS Academic 6.0 with no band below 5.5, TOEFL iBT 67, and PTE Academic 51. No minimum admission GPA is published, and the program's availability table does not currently list an open intake term.
Application Details
Application Deadline:Centennial publishes no application deadline for this program; what follows is the Ontario college cycle that governs it. Domestic applicants apply through ontariocolleges.ca: for a program starting in Fall 2027 the equal-consideration date is 1 February 2027, and applications arriving after it are still assessed, but first-come first-served while places remain. Across the Ontario college system the application opened on 26 September 2026, offers may be issued from 1 November 2026, and an offer must be accepted by 1 May 2027. One $150 fee covers up to five program choices. International applicants apply directly to Centennial through its own international application process and are assessed on a rolling basis across the Fall, Winter and Summer intakes; the college publishes no fixed international closing date. These are institution-wide dates; this programme publishes no deadline of its own.
