“Literacy for Independent Living”:
A New Literacy and Disability Online Resource
by Susan Forster*

Charles Ramsey, Executive Director of NALD, Susan Forster, National Project Manager at LIL/CAILC, Steve Estey, first literacy consultant for the CAILC/NALD project

The Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres (CAILC) is very proud to launch a new literacy and disability online resource, "Literacy for Independent Living". CAILC is a national umbrella organization run by and for persons with a wide variety of disabilities. We have a network of 26 Independent Living Resource Centres across Canada with more Centres developing each year. Independent Living is a vision, a philosophy and a movement. It is founded on the right of people with disabilities to:

• Live with dignity in their chosen community;
• Participate in all aspects of their own lives; and
• Control and make decisions about their own lives.

This philosophy underlies all the work that we do, including national projects on employment, social policy, crime prevention, literacy and other disability related issues. Literacy for Independent Living (LIL) is an example of one such national project.

The LIL site is currently hosted by the National Adult Literacy Database (NALD) and it is housed on the main CAILC website. LIL's accessible website offers online literacy resources for facilitators working with adult learners with disabilities and it includes information on assistive devices and disability awareness.

Funded by the National Literacy Secretariat, LIL was the result of a two-year CAILC national project conducted in partnership with NALD. NALD provided the technical and web design expertise and we provided the content, in consultation with our member Centres and a project Advisory Committee. We also surveyed 265 literacy organizations across the country early in the project to find out what kinds of information literacy practitioners would like to see on the site.

Although the online resources found on LIL are exciting, they are limited in number. The reality is that there are numerous gaps in literacy and disability resources, as this is a field where more work needs to be done in the future. However, we did find some real gems of information.

For example, there is a site from the UK called A to Z Deafblindness by James Gallagher (click on Deaf-Blind in the Disability Awareness section). Another gem is Pat Hatt's guide that outlines best practices on assessment procedures for literacy practitioners whose students are adult learners with cognitive, learning, mobility, psychiatric or sensory disabilities. To find Pat Hatt's guide on the LIL website, click on the Literacy Information and Resources button, go to Learning Disabilities and then choose Best Practices.

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