Family Literacy

SPECIAL PROJECTS REPORT:

Texas is one of five states selected to receive a family literacy grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The project, awarded to the Texas Education Agency, is called Families First: The Texas Even Start Statewide Family Literacy Initiative. The overall goal of the Families First: Texas Even Start Statewide Family Literacy Initiative is to improve family literacy services by building the capacity of local providers to coordinate and integrate existing federal, state, and local literacy resources.

Planning, implementing, and evaluating the grant activities will be a joint responsibility of the Texas Education Agency (the applicant agency) and its partners in the Even Start Statewide Family Literacy Initiative Consortium. State level partners of the Consortium include Texas Department of Health and Human Services, Head Start State Collaboration Project, the Texas Workforce Commission, the Texas Parent Teacher Association, the Texas Tech University, Head Start Technical Assistance and Support Center, United Way of Texas and the Texas Association for Literacy and Lifelong Learning. Local partners of the Consortium include the Texas Family Literacy Assistance Center at Baylor University, the Texas Center for Adult Literacy and Learning at Texas A&M, Education Service Center Region IX, Community Action of Hays, Blanco and Caldwell Counties, and Houston READ Commission, Corpus Christi Independent School District, the City of San Antonio Department of Community Initiatives, El Paso Community College, the Austin Area Urban League, and Southwest Texas State University.

The objectives and activities of the Families First: The Texas Even Start Statewide Family Literacy Initiative are to promote coordination and integration of resources for family literacy statewide; provide technical assistance statewide to current and future family literacy programs; and evaluate the initiatives. To accomplish these objectives, the grant activities will include team building workshops to facilitate cross-agency collaboration, interactive telecommunications broadcasts, on-site technical assistance, technical assistance publications, and day-to-day technical assistance through an electronic listserve dedicated to Texas family literacy subscribers. Baylor University and Texas A&M University are both subcontractors for the grant and will be involved in these activities.

More information about each of the activities will be provided through mailings, subsequent issues in this newsletter, the Adult Literacy Clearinghouse, and the FamLit listserve. If you have questions, please feel free to call the Division of Adult and Community Education at (512) 462-9294, the Texas Family Literacy Assistance Center at (800) 557-3522, or the Texas Center for Adult Literacy and Learning, (800) 441-7323.