Population Served:
217,000 Project Contact: Cindy Welsh Project Title: Get a Head Start@Your Library Project Description: “Get a Head Start @ Your Library” provides $300.00 worth of ESL, GED and citizenship resources (books, audiobooks, DVDs) to the 12 Head Start sites in Weld County, Colorado, serving approximately 750 Head Start families. Parents will be able to use the materials while their children attend classes as well as gain awareness of their local libraries, library services and additional resources through trainings and open houses arranged by library staff. |
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Notable accomplishment, promising practices, or human interest stories: An announcement about the grant in our local newspaper caught the eye of a Rotary Club member. She invited the librarian coordinating the grant to speak to the Rotary group. The invitation not only allowed the librarian to raise awareness about the literacy needs in our county, but also provided an opportunity to showcase the library district’s services and commitment to our community.
Key lessons learned: Allot more time to complete each phase of your project than you think is necessary, especially if working with a (non-profit partner). Circumstances in non-profits can change quickly and that can have an effect on joint scheduling. (For instance, our partner had to close two sites and transition families to different buildings. That affected our scheduling for introducing the American Dream “tubs” to the staff at staff orientation and families at parent nights and open houses.)
Advice for
other libraries serving adult English language learners: Make sure your collection of ELA (English language acquisition) materials is broad, serving learners at all levels. It is easy to accumulate a lot of “beginners” materials, but quite often there is too little available for the intermediate- and advanced-level learners. Until you can build that part of your collection, do some library merchandising (displays) that illustrate how those intermediate and advanced learners can use “regular” library materials (for instance, pair an English-language audiobook and the print version of the same title so that they can see the words and hear the pronunciation) to help them along in their studies. Invite them to talk about the book at a language café or class or even write a brief review to post on a bulletin board or your website in order to practice their oral and written skills in English.