Literacy Working Group Meeting DATE: Tuesday 23rd March 2pm - 4.30pm. VENUE: Zoom Meeting
1. Welcome Robert welcomed us on Zoom.
2. Present Amy Rake - Children’s Services Officer – Tamworth Library Rob Stewart – Team Leader Library Programs – Singleton Library Anita Planchon - Director Strategy and Engagement - Libraries Tasmania Andrea McMahon - Senior Literacy Coordinator - Libraries Tasmania Rachel Davis - Assistant Director, Literacy Development - Libraries ACT Meredith Campbell - Community Outreach Officer - Midcoast Council Sarah Wild - Library Outreach Officer - City of Canada Bay - Library & Community Services Kate O'Grady – Consultant – State Library NSW Vanessa Iles & Jill Finch- Reading Writing Hotline Elaine Glover - Senior Library Officer Warrawong District Library (Acting) Kerrie Nicholson - Corangamite Regional Libraries Corporation - Victoria Anita Kasumovic - Senior Library Assistant – Fairfield Library Suzanne Micallef - Information Access Librarian - City of Parramatta Libraries Marisa Seeley - Team Leader Adult Programs – Liverpool City Library Susan McIlroy - Adult Programs and Outreach Officer - Goulburn Mulwaree Library Helen Williams - Multicultural Librarian – Inner West Libraries Victoria Murray - Programs Team Leader - Bathurst Regional Council Jann Debenham - Technical Specialist Multicultural Services – Canterbury Banktown Marisa Bottaro (and Audra De La Torre) - Team Leader Library Programs – Kogarah
3. Guest Speaker – Anita Planchon, Director Strategy and Engagement Libraries Tasmania Literacy Program – 26TEN Anita talked about the Tasmanian statewide literacy initiative, which was introduced after a study in 2006 found that the State’s population had a 1:2 low literacy and numeracy rate. From the findings of this survey, a substantial amount of funding was promised to increase the literacy and numeracy levels, and 26TEN was founded. This campaign included widespread liaising with businesses, educational institutions and libraries, and a strategy was introduced that included free literacy courses at libraries, producing literacy resources, training tutors and structured evaluation of the individuals progress and the success of the program. Anita went through some of the success stories and methods that they used to set up literacy training groups throughout the state. See the attached PowerPoint notes
4. Guest Speaker - Rob Stewart, Team Leader Library Programs, Singleton Library. Rob spoke about the Adult Literacy program that was set up at Singleton Library in 2016, after it was found that there was a need for improved literacy in the community. Training was initially set up through the Read Write and Spell foundation, which sadly no longer exists. They had a number of people from the community, as well as a staff member trained to be tutors, and have retrained more tutors (in 2018) through Great Lakes TAFE. https://www.tafensw.edu.au/course/-/c/c/800-000752/TAFE-Statement-in-Volunteer-Literacy-Tutor-Training The TAFE course offers the qualification Statement in Volunteer Literacy Tutor Training and costs $95 per person, the cost of which Singleton Library covers. They have found that using volunteer tutors allows for greater flexibility Program is co-ordinated by a library staff member who puts tutor in contact with the appropriate attendees. Many of the attendees are from NESB, though they have also reached out to the Unions to encourage attendees who are identified as struggling with literacy. He stressed that the Reading Writing Hotline was a really good resource.
5. Guest Speaker - Rachel Davis, Assistant Director, Literacy Development, Libraries ACT Rachel spoke about the Adult Literacy program that is set up at the ACT, with her program a dedicated program for co-ordinating literacy programs throughout the ACT. Literacy programs: •English conversation classes •1-1 adult literacy tutoring •adult literacy collection including simple texts, dictionaries, and workbooks. •digital literacy support (drop in; pending COVID) Goal is to assist adults to improve their reading and writing skills and connect to the library, its resources and services. Partner with local community services and ACT Government agencies who refer adults to learn with a volunteer tutor from the library. Tutoring is 1-1 and targeted for English speaking background adults. Soon will expand to include learners who speak English as an additional language Will expand to include numeracy tutoring TBA. Have tried a couple of different training options for volunteers and currently have a few enrolled in an online course delivered by TAFE in Tasmania. https://www.tastafe.tas.edu.au/courses/course/chcss00101 To date have received more than 20 referrals, met with 16 potential learners, and tutored 9 adults. Referrals have included men and women from a range of cultural backgrounds including First Nations, from school leavers to young parents to adults in their 70s. Participants have learned to read text messages, passed a written driver’s license test and gained their permit, shared story books with their children, and built skills and confidence to go on to formal study with Canberra Institute of Technology. Recruiting tutors •Promote through social media, volunteering peak body, radio, info sessions •ideally looking for volunteers with some experience in adult literacy •at least looking for mentoring/tutoring style skills, listening, patience, warmth •especially patience as it takes time to get referral, match, build momentum & there is a fairly high drop off rate for adult learners. Finding learners •Referral from local partners; Reading Writing Hotline; people to sometimes just turn up. •Referral is via a conversation with the learner and a caseworker/referrer if there is one. •We look at whether there would be a more appropriate program for the learner’s needs. •There is a high drop off rate which I believe is par for the course with adult literacy programs. • Goal: to give people a positive enough experience so that even if they don’t keep going with us, they will be open to trying again in the future. Training •Ideally want a local/flexible option. •Hold regular tutor peer development sessions to solve issues and learn together, highlight the collection etc. •Run occasional training/collection showcase sessions with English Conversation Class volunteers and tutors. Tutoring •Meet at the library or the referral service; not in homes etc •Roughly 1 hour a week •Important to set clear goals to chart progress and know when to wrap up or refer on (in conversation with tutor and learner). •Volunteer role description Lessons learned •Balancing having tutors available for matching VS having volunteers with nothing to do because we haven’t had a match for them. Plan to engage literacy volunteers in multiple roles e..g with conversation class if they would like to & have suitable skills etc. •We aim for a supported model and take referrals from local community services. That way, if learner needs support with e.g. transport we can go back to the referral service. It also means there’s a ‘warm referral’, the learner already knows the caseworker. For example, the caseworker will take the learner to grab a coffee together and then head over to meet me and the tutor at the library, so it’s quite a friendly approach. Also if something is not working out in the tutoring relationship, everyone has at least one other person they can talk to about it. And if the learner goes AWOL, I have someone else I can ask, have you heard from this person? •If the referral is from the hotline or another pathway, we don’t have that same level of support. We have been able to sometimes connect a learner to a community service for e.g. support to find work, work readiness. We want to keep taking referrals from the Hotline and keep building local supports and connections. •We considered engaging e.g. third year teaching students as part of their placement, but it didn’t work because of timing. We are looking for longer term volunteering and can’t guarantee a learner within a certain time frame.
6. Guest Speaker Meredith Campbell, Community Outreach Officer, Midcoast Council
The Manager came across an opportunity for a joint grant application with TAFE to re-engage seniors back into the community by providing training to enable them to become Volunteer Literacy Tutors. Why we chose to use community volunteers as tutors? The program has minimal budgetary impact with funds needed for training, resources, collection and staff time to coordinate. Training is scheduled with the BRBC trainer (retired TAFE literacy teacher), offering 6 x 4 hour weekly sessions at a local venue 9:30 – 1:30pm and provide morning tea. Training is based from the Literacy Face-to-Face; a resource for volunteer adult literacy tutors. All tutors receive a bound copy for future reference. At the end of the course the trainer and volunteer tutors have a better idea if they will be able to offer support as a Volunteer Literacy Tutor. Important to note, not all tutors are suitable for the role and this needs to be closely monitored. The trainer will meet with the client and new tutor to make the initial assessments, provide support and guidance with session planning and support the new tutor in getting started. This support is carried on until the tutor is confident or as required. Tutors with a teaching background generally need little support in the initial stages.
7. Update from State Library (Kate O’Grady) Working group wikis The new NSW public library working group wikis are available at https://wiki.libraries.nsw.gov.au/doku.php?id=start With the literacy wiki at https://wiki.libraries.nsw.gov.au/doku.php?id=literacy_working_group A lot of content was transferred across from the old wiki but some still needs to be updated. This is mainly minutes, agendas and linked content. Missing content shows up in red text. Indyreads https://indyreads.libraries.nsw.gov.au/ The Indyreads public library eresources platform is continually being updated with new content. Please take a look if you haven’t looked recently. It includes publications that are useful in planning and running library services. Currently there is not a lot of content related to literacy. Questions to the group: Would you find is useful to have texts to support library staff and literacy tutors in the delivery of literacy services in indyreads? Would it be useful to have adult readers for those with low literacy in indyreads? Do you think that those with low literacy levels would be comfortable using an ersources platform like indyreads? If you would like to provide feedback on this please email Kate O’Grady kate.ogrady@sl.nsw.gov.au Indyreads users can create lists of resources that can be shared with others through social media. I’m happy to give a quick demo of Indyreads at a future meeting if there is interest.
8. Reports from members on news, programs, initiatives.
9. Report from Adult Learning Australia webinar: Looking back, casting forward - 60 years of Adult Learning in Australia 25/11 The keynote address was by Professor Barry Golding AM, Professor (Adjunct) in adult and community education, Federation University Australia in Ballarat. •Before 1960 adult education was provided only by agencies at state level. The formation of the AAAE (Australian Association of Adult Education) created the first National body •Very disjointed up until the 80’s with ongoing debates as to which organisations should take the lead in adult education (Unis, Govt Depts, volunteer bodies) •1980’s saw growing focus on community based adult education provision with TAFE NSW wholly withdrawing from adult education and the severance of the WEA – University of Sydney alliance. •1990s high water mark of adult education. Emergence of ACE (Adult and Community Education) – supported by NSW Dept of Education through grants to ACE providers across NSW. •1st Adult Learners Week in 1995 •Beyond Cinderella (1997) A Senate Report sought to bring together a national VET and ACE policy – but there remains no coherent, national approach to ACE •In seeking a more coherent national approach, and of particular interest to this group, Professor Golding proposed the following slogan as a mission statement of a future national body: Universal Literacy and Learning for Wellbeing. The rationale being that government will not fund learning for learnings sake but will support learning that is economically rational. •I asked Prof. Golding about his thoughts on the value of public libraries to adult education. He sees libraries as crucially important. He talked about our nimbleness in being able to facilitate adult education initiatives, the fact we operate as defacto community centres, places where people gather for social capital. He sees libraries as vital institutions for people to meet, to feel safe and welcome, to learn and to access resources.
10. Suggested topics for upcoming meetings • How to teach adults effectively • Collection development • Supporting individuals with dyslexia • Role of the local literacy coordinator in library literacy programs
11. Other business Next Meeting: Tuesday September 14 2021 – 2 to 4pm – via Zoom
Points for Communication via eLists Don't forget to go back to your workplace and share the ideas from this meeting. Make sure you tell others about it, including your manager. Wiki updates this has come about because the State Library has changed to a different host for this service and so the information that is currently housed on the Wikifoundry, Literacy Working group Wiki pages http://plnswliteracy.wikifoundry.com/ needs to be migrated to the new host Beta Wiki.