Outreach information

Dear All
I am adding a list of all the outreach that I carried out for the UPP program.

Outreach for UPP
Began to connect with community organizations week beginning 22nd February

Better Beginnings:
Visited Parent and Toddler group, Teen Moms group
Left fliers and talked to staff about promoting the program to their clients

Rideau Heights PS:
Sent fliers home with all JK and SK children
Posted fliers on notice boards
Included fliers in school readiness RAPP packs

J.G.Simcoe PS:
Talked to all school readiness parents and sent fliers home with the RAPP packs
Posted fliers on notice boards

Frontenac PS:
Talked to the principal at the CRNC meeting and gave flier for sending out to parents

Wally Elmer Community Hub:
Posted fliers, left fliers on the table
Information posted on the Wally TV screen

NK Community Health Centre:
Spoke to staff and left fliers for distribution
Kingston Community Credit Union:
Spoke to staff and got permission to leave fliers and information at the bank for two weeks

Pathways:
Talked to staff and left fliers for distribution to clients

No Frills, Division Street:
Made a new display board advertising the program.Took fliers, bought candy and talked about UPP to many shoppers entering the store on Saturday 6th March

Canadian Tire:
Gave out fliers- Saturday 6th March
Native Friendship Centre:
Talked to staff and arranged to attend the lunch on Monday 22nd March

Food Bank:
left fliers having talked with staff 16th March

Compton and Daly Street:
Delivered fliers to each household and talked one to one with people we encountered 16th March

Correctional Services:
Talked to staff and gave out fliers

Kingston & Frontenac Housing Corporation 17th March:
Gave out fliers which staff agreed to post in the various apartment buildings

Elizabeth Fry Society:
Sent flier electronically

Native Friendship Centre:
Lunch on 22nd March talked about the program to participants

Outside Rideau Heights/ Wally Elmer:
Made bright poster advertising the program and placed balloons on the doors offering coffee to any on dropped in to find out about the program from 8:00 to 9:00 am on Monday 22nd ,Tuesday 23rd and Thursday 25th March while parents were taking children to school.
Left poster outside the Wally Elmer all morning on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and will do for following two weeks

CRNC:
A group of agencies who serve north Kingston.
Attended the 23rd March meeting and passed out information and fliers about the program
Made a button advertising the program and inviting people to ask about UPP which I wore when I was in the area

Reach Out!:
The parenting workshop booklet.
Advertized the program in this booklet which is also available online

Car:
Placed fliers in car

Update March 22

The Building Family Literacy and Essential Skills Advisory Committee met on March 10, 2010.

Ideas generated by the committee:

• Keep connected with Project Read (through Lorri) so as to not duplicate curriculum ideas between the two projects,
• Write an UPP facilitator’s manual,
• Make sure the participatory approach is a key element for facilitators to include in program development
• Examine and build up the Essential Skills components of the curriculum where necessary
• Set up a theme format so levelled Essential Skills activities are easy to use/find (e.g., like an SRA box).

I’ve started writing the Facilitators’ Manual and hope to have a rough draft (very rough) by the end of this week. I’m thinking about the Essential Skills activities idea. I need to figure out an easy way to do this!

Anne and her team (Shelley and Deb) have been doing lots of outreach in North Kingston. It is hoped that this will encourage parents to join the UPP program at the Wally Elmer Community Centre. We have three definite participants and a few more who have said they are interested. We are hoping for a vibrant group.

In a couple of weeks we will approach a few of these UPP participants as well as some LBS students from our North Kingston site to do PDQ and the parent questionnaires. We know how difficult testing situations can be for students. We want to learn more about how to design the testing process so it is the most positive experience for students. We hope that by doing a few tests now, we will see where the difficulties lie in terms of the way we present it and do it, on the testing day. We will change our approach if necessary for our fall groups.

I’ve had a couple of requests for the link to the PDQ. Here is a link to use. From here you can take a mini test (very mini) to get an idea of what it’s like. You may need to temporarily allow pop-ups. I need to do that each time. When you are on the page, scroll to the bottom and to “start the demo of some sample items”.

http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.1488512ecfd5b8849a77b13bc3921509/?vgnextoid=f509af5e44df4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD&vgnextchannel=0992e3b5f64f4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD

If this link doesn’t work for you, Google ETS Testing and choose the American ETS link. The Canadian site sells only ESL testing. When on the ETS site, go to tests (tab at the top) > ETS Literacy >Test Preparation.

We re-posted the On-line Course Developer position on the HRSDC Job Bank and Kijiji. We have had many responses from the Job Bank and one from Kijiji. Fortunately one applicant in this grouping definitely has (on paper) what I’m looking for. That makes at least two because there is one from our original call who what looks like the right background.

The annual exercise of “year-end” book keeping is in full swing at KL&S. Please, save our trusty book keepers from pulling out their hair -- send your remittance forms for the Advisory Committee meeting to KL&S if you have not done so already.

Cheers,
Deb

Family Literacy and Essential Skills Update March 3

Next week will be busy for Building Family Literacy and Essential Skills (BFL&ES).

1. The first face to face Advisory Committee meeting will take place on Tuesday evening and Wednesday.
2. Some ALSO - Ottawa participants will be pre-tested using the PDQ online test and the two questionniares that have been developed by our researcher, Noriyeh Rahbari.
3. ALSO - Ottawa will begin using the UPP curriculum in their program.
4. Anne Jackson will begin outreach in North Kingston to recruit UPP participants for our program in that area.
5. Job ads have been placed for an Online Course Developer and we are hoping many good applications will arrive at our main office (Community Learning Centre Kingston) by March 12.

A few of the details that needed attention to get this far are:

1. Finding a researcher and setting up the contract for that work.
2. Setting up the contract with ALSO.
3. Setting up the Advisory Committee for the project.
4. Organizing the Centra meeting and the face to face meeting.
5. Setting up the in-kind reporting mechanism.
6. Deciding on the pre and post test format (PDQ) and purchasing the tests.
7. Figuring out our best schedule for UPP delivery and testing.
8. Beginning arrangements with potential control groups (LBS and "no-program" groups).
9. Reporting to OLES -- we have remained in good contact with our OLES reps.
10. Learning how to create a blog!!

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to add to the blog. It will be a pleasure to see you next week.

I've made dinner reservations for 6:00 pm on Tuesday at a restaurant called Olivea. It is a couple of blocks from the Holiday Inn. We will have lunch at CLCK on Wednesday. I'll send an email with this information later this week.

Deb

First Blog

Hi folks,
I've set up this blog as a communication tool for the Building Family Literacy and Essential Skills Kingston Literacy and Skills and OLES project. I plan to post an update about the project every two weeks.
Best regards,
Deb