"Professionalizing" the Field

The issues of practitioner training and accreditation are important, complicated, and controversial. We all want our field to be recognized and treated as a legitimate profession. At the same time, literacy work is so multi-faceted and challenging that no training formula could prepare us for it. An academic curriculum might not address the related issues of poverty, abuse, racism, etc. that literacy workers deal with every day. Many literacy practitioners, well-educated but trained on the job, are afraid they may be excluded from the profession they have devoted their working lives to. The Ontario literacy community has struggled with accreditation issues for over ten years and this is an overview of the process so far. - Ed.

THE ONTARIO LITERACY COALITION
Task Force on Literacy Worker Recognition recently published the Adult Literacy Educator Skills List. The publication of this document is another important step towards increased access to literacy practitioner training and professional recognition in Ontario. In order to fully appreciate this resource, it might be helpful to look at it in the context of the history of the provincial training initiative that it is a part of.

This initiative formally began in 1988 with the development of an arms length, independent special interest group of the Ontario Literacy Coalition (OLC), to investigate the education and training needs of Ontario literacy workers. A subsequent special interest group, with broad representation from across Ontario, developed a strategy to develop standards and training opportunities and to start to put together an assessment system required for formal recognition.

The Council for Literacy Education, Assessment and Recognition (CLEAR) developed a framework for Literacy Practitioner Education which addressed three periods of learning: new workers, experienced workers and trainers, and research and extensive experience. The content of the training was organized within six broad areas of learning needs and skills. These early initiatives were essential precursors to the current work. The CLEAR framework did not describe a concrete list of essential literacy educator skills, nor did it suggest a viable certification model.

In 1996, the OLC became formally responsible for the practitioner training and recognition initiative. A Task Force on Literacy Worker Recognition was set up, including Anglophone literacy practitioners, trainers, and program administrators as well as representatives from literacy networks and government.

(continued on page 2)