Comic Book Literacy

So you might be asking yourself what do Comic Books and Literacy have in common?  In early January I came across a documentary called ... Comic Book Literacy and was intrigued.  I looked into the documentary film exploring the positive potential of comics in community education and was blown away by the love of the film. The film features interviews with a number of comic book creators, publishers, artists and fans...many of whom attribute their own love of reading to comics. I had it on my "to see" list to check out ... 

Fast forward to February and I receive an email from Uncle Staple of the STAPLE! Independent Media Expo and as luck would have it he informed me that as part of the programming this year the Comic Book Literacy documentary will be screening!  The film will be shown at 4:00pm Saturday March 5th, after which there will be a Q&A panel with the film's director Todd Kent & James O'Barr, the creator of The Crow, who appears in the film as one of the interviewees.


Comic books and literacy are two subjects Uncle Staple feels strongly about, and the more I read the more I have to agree with him.  I believe that this film has an important message that needs to be shared with those in the educational and literacy communities who may not see the connection between literacy and comics.  I would encourage all of our providers to check out this film!

STAPLE! runs from 11-6 Saturday March 5th and from 12-6 Sunday March 6th... $15 for a two day pass gets you into everything but LCCT providers and friends I have news for you! I have passes for the expo & film screening that will be given away over the next few weeks at our Annual Meeting and on our FaceBook page!  LCCT will be joining the STAPLE! family for the weekend, so look for our booth and come by to say hello!

Check out these awesome trailers Uncle Staple passed to me today ... 

this one is an animated trailer, by local artist Yehudi Mercado: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXRB-s4pIYE

...and here is a trailer for the Comic Book Literacy documentary we will be screening at the show: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUvxYzhvMDA

Are you ready for volunteers?

Last time we checked in on the Institute for Excellence in Volunteer Management (i.e. our two day volunteer management extravaganza in September) people were asking, "What do we do with all of this great information now?" ... Well you didn't think we were going to leave them high and dry, did you?!

Part of the mastery of the institute's design included continued support for the participating organizations to help them clearly focus on the identified topics where they felt as though outside help was needed. University of Texas graduate students from the School of Social Work, LBJ Public Affairs, and the College of Communications are working together collaboratively with these 15 organizations:

Any Baby Can

American YouthWorks

The Austin Academy

Austin Area Interreligious Ministries (AAIM) 
Austin Free-Net

Austin Learning Academy

Communities in Schools
Caritas

El Buen Samaritano

English at Work

The Financial Literacy Coalition of Central Texas

GoodWill Central Texas

Lifeworks

Manos de Cristo
Ventanilla de Salud

It is amazing to see what is being accomplished with in the groups!  The student consultants are working together in the following focus areas:

Focus Areas: Volunteer/Staff Relations and Buy in

• Staff attitudes towards volunteers
• Levels of training (volunteer management)
• Position descriptions and roles (staff and volunteer)
• Language related to volunteers (ex. mission, website, literature)
• Expectations
• Conflict mediation procedures
• Volunteer and staff recognition

  
Focus Area: Evaluation of Volunteer Program, Staff & Volunteers

• Establishing evaluation needs
• What needs to be evaluated (volunteer program, volunteers, staff, etc) 
• Purpose of evaluation (efficacy, satisfaction, or both)
• Forms of evaluation that best aligns with organization’s needs
• Providing research, evaluation tools, applications, and useful examples 

Focus Areas: Supervision & Support

• Provide an overview of the supervision process
• Guidelines for supervising volunteers
• Effective follow up with volunteers
• Methods to provide support to your volunteers. 

Focus Areas: Policies, Procedures & Organizational Strategies

• Assess & evaluate existing policies and procedures
• Identify problem areas that could be addressed to strengthen policies and procedures
• Identify resources related to strengthening policies and procedures
• Develop hands on strategies and tools (including technology/data management) to successfully integrate policies and procedures into organizational culture

As the end of the semester is rolling around, the students are doing a great job at getting these consulting projects completed.  The next big thing will be providing the organizations with the valuable information that they've worked so hard on all semester!  Stay tuned to hear about more progress!

Institute for Excellence in Volunteer Management

For a day and a half, the Literacy Coalition offered an institute to assist our partner organizations with the task of learning more about how to effectively manage volunteers. We were able to develop and host this amazing training thanks to the Renewing Our Communities grant from the OneStar Foundation.  A partnership with Dr. Sarah Jane Rehnborg of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service ensured that we had the best of the best educating our partner agencies. We would also like to thank St. David's Episcopal Church in Austin for providing us with such wonderful accommodations and being so attentive to the needs of our guests attending the event.

After learning a wealth of knowledge about effectively managing volunteers, all institute participants are now receiving free consulting from graduate students at the University of Texas who assisted with the institute and helped our partner organizations identify things that they wanted to work on to strengthen their volunteer programs.  Students are focusing on five key areas: Volunteer & Staff Relations, Supervision & Support, Policies & Organizational Strategies, Roles for Volunteers, and Evaluation. 

Check out some pictures from our two day event below:

everyone at the institute! what a great crowd!

the marvelous Dr. Sarah Jane Renhborg

group brainstorming

great shared learning experiences!

Stay tuned for updates about the student and organization progress! 

We are LCCT. We Reach, Teach and Unite.

Welcome to the REACH, TEACH, UNITE blog! Thanks for checking us out! Here at the Literacy Coalition of Central Texas we are excited (and also pretty nervous) to start this new blog. "What are we going to write about?" "Who is going to follow us?" "Why are a people going to follow us?" These are some of the questions that were floating around our office once we decided to do this. Well, here we are. And to start, I want to tell you a little bit about why we exist. Based in Austin, TX and serving the 5-county Central Texas region where 1 in 5 native-English speaking community members cannot read or write well enough to fill out a job application, the LCCT is working to create a 100% literate community. Here's how we're doing it:

Reach

We REACH out to people in our community with resources. We raise their awareness and involvement in addressing area literacy needs by compelling them to action and connecting them with opportunities to give. This includes community members looking to make philanthropic investments, policy makers and elected officials, and those with time/talents to volunteer.

We REACH out to those families in the Austin area who struggle with limited literacy. Our toll-free Literacy Referral Line connects people with local programs to address their needs and them further their lives. We continually conduct outreach to low-literate populations in our community to help them understand and enroll in the services available to them.

We REACH low-literate families currently receiving services, connecting them with a wide array of community resources. The Literacy Service Provider Directory and the Central Texas Healthcare Referral Guide connect families with needed literacy, healthcare and other services.

We REACH legislators in the State of Texas through Literacy Day at the Capitol to support statewide public investment in adult education and other family literacy programs.

Teach

We TEACH literacy instructors using high-quality, evidence-based training in English as a second language instruction and health literacy. We provide trainings, classroom resources and opportunities for peer consultation to improve the quality and quantity of services available in Central Texas.

We TEACH community stakeholders about changing literacy conditions and community needs by conducting community presentations, participating in community planning efforts, and conducting public awareness campaigns and trainings in health literacy.

We TEACH students in adult literacy programs how to engage in the civic process through their participation in Literacy Day at the Capitol, a state-wide advocacy event.

Unite

We UNITE literacy programs with the broader network of community service provision, to build a seamless system of literacy services for learners at various levels and for various populations.

We UNITE literacy programs with each other to spark collaboration, shared learning, shared resources, and client referrals at our quarterly Provider Network Luncheons.

Now that you know a little about the work that we do, I want to introduce you to the soon-to-be stars of the blog world. LCCT staff, the self-proclaimed "Champions of Literacy" - semi-jokingly, I might add - include,

Contributors

Meg Poag, Executive Director - Meg's blog topics will revolve around coalition building, leadership, community engagement, board relations, literacy issues and new research.

Nichole Lopez-Riley, Program Manager - Nichole will cover employee management, program oversight, earned-income ventures, ESL and ABE instruction and resources, and literacy policy changes.

Carly Bradshaw, Development and Communications Officer - Carly's blogs posts will include fundraising strategies, grant writing, event planning and donor relations.

 

Jen Freeman, Volunteer Coordinator - Jen plans to blog about volunteerism, volunteer management, public advocacy, personal accounts of literacy volunteers, and grant writing techniques (Jen is the queen of writing and editing!).

Shannon Mann, Contract Program Officer - Shannon's posts will cover Spelling Bee fundraising events and the Central Texas Volunteer Summit

Hannah Giles, Development Coordinator - Hannah is starting with the LCCT in August, 2010 in a newly designed position to assist us with fund development. She will blog about fund development and donor relations.

Peter Morrison, Health Literacy Specialist - Peter (that's me!) will be writing about health literacy; issues associate with HL, research, policy updates, workshop results, individuals' stories, health outreach events, and new health literacy resources for literacy instructors, patients and healthcare providers.

Sounds pretty sweet, right!?! Right. Come back to visit us, leave comments, shoot us emails and call us. We'll be here, hanging out and promoting literacy in the hills of Central Texas.

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