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E/Merging Literacies of Home, Family, and Community: Valuing the literacies of Community Workers and Mothers

SSHRC and National Literacy Secretariat awarded $32,000 for 2000-2001

Pam Nason and Pam Whitty

Purpose:

The purpose of this study is to examine the ways in which Early Intervention (EI), and Family Resource Centre (FRC) workers are emerging as critical players in the literacy support and education of young children and their parents. Theoretically, children's early literacy learning results from a combined effort of mothers, child care givers, and primary school teachers, however the emerging reality is that government health policy, both provincial and federal, has come to play a considerable role in the literacy learning of young children and the parents who teach them, in practice, mostly mothers. In addition, current National policy report recommendations indicate that effective parenting and supportive communities are crucial components in the development of a National Societal Strategy for Children and their Families.

Programs, such as the Early Childhood Initiatives (ECI) in New Brunswick and Community Action Programs for Children (CAPC) across Canada, for priority preschool children and their families have resulted in the emergence of literacy learning opportunities. These opportunities have emmerged in the context of their interactions with the staff of EI and FR Centres.

Objectives:

In this research study "E/Merging Literacies of Home, Family and Community", we will illustrate and validate how these workers, mostly women, view their daily work: work which is constructed within a policy of empowerment and conducted in the informal settings of home, Early Intervention, Family Resource Centres, and neighbourhoods. We propose to demonstrate how EI and FRC staff interpret current National and Provincial Health policy in terms of its impact on their practice, values and beliefs, and in particular on the manner in which literacy is taught and learned by staff, mothers, and children in these community contexts. The findings from this study will inform policy deliberations in the area of health as well as adult literacy, family literacy, community collaborations and early childhood care and education. Recommendations will have use for ongoing education and training and may indicate possibilities for sector development for early years and community literacy workers.

With our partners the Family Resource Centres Canada and Early Intervention Directors of N.B.(Anglophone), we will invite EI and FRC workers to participate in a three year collaborative action research experience to systemically document, reflect upon and enhance the ways in which their literacy work is enacted. Our role will be to facilitate connections and conversations between practitioners, help them document their own experience and locate it within current research and theory and existing policy frameworks. As well, we will document and theorize the roles that we play, as academics engaged in collaborative action research with practitioners in the field.

Collaborating with PLC

This work represents a continuation and expansion of our most recent collaborative research and development project entitled Parenting for a Literate Community (http://cspace.unb.ca/edfac/ecc/plc). In this work we began to see how deeply Family Resource Centre and Early Intervention workers in New Brunswick are engaged in literacy work in the context of ‘ready for school' initiatives for priority preschool children and their parents who in practice are mostly mothers. Working within the policy frameworks of New Brunswick's Early Childhood Initiatives (ECI) and the National Community Action Programs for Children (CAPC-Health Canada), the premise of many parent literacy education programs is rejected- that parents need to be told what to do. Instead they live and work with a philosophy that ostensibly empowers parents and children by building on their strengths and paying careful attention to their needs. Our own experience as academics in this project and the New Brunswick Maternal Literacies Project has taught us how we can play a role in helping practitioners articulate their knowledge and strengthen connections with other community literacy workers.

Outcomes:

The project outcomes will include:

• enhanced knowledge about the role that EI and FRC staff and mothers play in literacy education
• a flexible literacy teaching/learning model, one that values the literacy work that practitioners and mothers are doing in informal contexts
• position papers and published academic works which bring the voices of early intervention and family resource workers and mothers to social policy discussions.

This research focuses upon the way literacy practices have emerged in the contexts of federal and provincial health initiatives. In particular it examines the literacy practices of Early Intervention and Family Resource Centre staff in their work with mothers and children and the ways these practices can inform/shape ongoing initiatives including "ready for school" initiatives.