Preface

This handbook is a resource for people interested in using community capacity building ways of working to broaden a community response to adult literacy needs.

People who will find this handbook useful include literacy practitioners and coordinators of community programs in adult and family literacy, tutors, teachers, community learning councils, and non-credit course instructors. This resource is also for service providers such as social workers, nurses, librarians, program coordinators and managers. Community groups such as non-profit boards, committees, inter-agency working groups, faith, and volunteer groups may also find this a useful resource to help them reach out and support individuals that struggle with reading, writing and numeracy.

As a reader you might use this handbook to help you make contact with community organizations and groups to talk about the experiences of individuals with limited literacy when accessing services and programs. You can use it to help build partnerships with organizations to make workplace changes to reduce literacy barriers and create literacy sensitive services. You can also learn how to support community organizations be mindful of adult literacy when planning community events such as resource fairs. We hope this handbook can help you with your work to advance adult literacy within and across your community.

The handbook is organized into three parts. Part one describes the Connecting Literacy to Community (CLC) project, particularly the work we did and the outcomes of the project. Part two offers you things to try in your own community. We describe in detail the tools and strategies we used and suggest ways that you can use them to advance adult literacy among community services. In part three we describe the research that was included in the CLC project. The appendices include outlines and worksheets that you can copy or adapt to use within your own community. There is a list of references that we found useful for our work as literacy specialists.

A large part of our work included helping service providers learn how to write in plain language. With this in mind I have made a conscious effort to write the handbook based on principles of plain language.¹

¹ Multiculturalism and Citizenship Canada. (1994). Plain Language: Clear and Simple. Ottawa: Canada Communications Group.