Another UPP-date
(This picture is a Let's Read plaque that KFL&A Public Health is providing for medical waiting rooms.)







UPP Online

Susan Ramsay and Deb Wood are busy designing the online content for the UPP Online portion of the project.
UPP Online Plan

• 5 hours total course deliver time per week for UPP curriculum online.
• 2 one hour sessions per week using Centra - Deb Wood is designing the content and will instruct this portion.
• 3 hours per week of Moodle learning activities that connect to the content Deb Wood is designing - Susan Ramsay is designing the Moodle learning activities.
  

Susan and Deb have both sent me drafts of the first theme and it is excellent.
The Centra portion will be through Contact North and I'm pretty sure the Moodle portion will be through AlphaPlus.

I'm looking for a developer who will take the work Susan is doing and create the actual Moodle activities. I hope to have that sorted soon. We plan to begin piloting in January.

KL&S / CEFL Website
UPP Curriculum Online
The UPP Curriculum for practitioners on the CEFL website will be redesigned to provide more continuity between the Essential Skills piece and the curriculum thus making it easier to navigate. This work will start in December.

UPP Programs

ALSO and KL&S UPP Programs

Both ALSO Ottawa and KL&S UPP programs are up and running! The pre-assessment PDQs and questionaires have been done at both sites.

UPP Rural Program

Learning Centre for Georgina in Keswick, has signed an MoU and will our site for the UPP Program in an rural setting. It is very exciting to have this part of the project underway. The program in Keswick will focus on young parents who will be working towards upgrading their skills so they can then complete high school and beyond. The project taking place in partnership with a group called "Rose of Sharon" which is providing key childcare support.

UPP Urban Program
We have yet to contract with an urban program to provide UPP. There is one program reviewing the idea of having a program at their site right now. I hope to know soon.

UPP Research
As mentioned above, the PDQs and questionnaires have been done at ALSO and KL&S UPP Programs. LBS students at KL&S have completed the PDQs and questionnaires too. The pre assessment will also take place at the Learning Centre for Georgina.

The control group that is not involved in any parenting program or upgrading program has been very hard to recruit. I had four names on my list but as it turned out these folks were all high school graduates and so are not eligible! It is a very big request (at least 2.5 hours of rather frustrating testing, PDQ) for a very limited number of potential participants.

Some ideas:

• Provide a very large incentive ($100.00) - not sure we can afford that!


• Ask those in the existing UPP group to encourage friends to do it and provide a finder's fee


• Ask any folks who drop out, to come back and do the post test

Do you have any other ideas?

FYI - FREE PDQ Tests

HRSDC has bought 10,000 PDQ tests and will make them available to literacy programs to use for their programs for FREE. PDQs cost between $9.00 and $15.00 each, depending on how many you use. If you want to know more, email me and I'll send you the contact information at HRSDC.

Deb