Currents in Literacy

Creating a Vision of Family Literacy in Cambridge

By Ellyn Ruthstrom

You may be familiar with the film adage "If you build it, they will come," but the trusting optimism of that statement doesn't always reap rewards in the real world. Fortunately for Cambridge, when three people (Nancy Hoe, Early Childhood Co-coordinator of the Cambridge Even Start Program; Sylvia Greene, Adult Basic Education Co-coordinator of the Cambridge Even Start Program; and Mina Reddy, Director of the Cambridge Learning Center) had a vision of a Family Literacy Collaborative in their city and they called a meeting of literacy professionals - the people actually came. Nancy Hoe was excited by the response, "I was actually amazed that the first time we had a meeting twenty to twenty-five people came. And they were from very different agencies, a lot of agencies who hadn't been asked to have these conversations before."

Officially founded in January 1998 through the joint initiative of the Cambridge Even Start Program and the Cambridge Community Learning Center, the Cambridge Family Literacy Collaborative (CFLC) has been meeting monthly during the school year to form a cohesive community organization focused on family literacy. Modeled on the Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium (MFLC), CFLC is committed to educating the wider community about family literacy; encouraging a systemwide commitment to family literacy; and pooling the collective time, energy, and resources of the affiliated groups in those efforts.

Among the current members of the group are representatives of the school department's Title I and Home-Based programs, and the school libraries; the Community Learning Center which focuses on adult education services; the Cambridge Health Alliance's Reach Out and Read Program (ROAR) which distributes books at well-visits for children; and Parents Forum, Families First, and the Center for Families of North Cambridge, which all deal with providing a variety of parent workshops and services. Many other organizations have participated in meetings and continue to give their support to the collaborative.

Family literacy programs face many challenges as they attempt to get off the ground and combine services to a variety of populations, and Cambridge is no exception. The changing demographic makeup of Cambridge is certainly an issue that affects the community and the range of services to be provided. The recent welfare reform in Massachusetts has taken away a safety net for many families, and the end of rent control in the city has altered the socio-economics of the city, but there remain families who are at extremes of the spectrum. Hoe notes, "You've got parents at one end who want one-stop shopping - they want to have their children do the story hour at the library and they want support for their nanny to go with their children - on the other hand, you've got people who can't read and are trying to bring up their kids in a shelter. So you've got this real disparity of needs."

Territory issues have been another concern, especially before the collaborative was established. Agencies competing for the same money were afraid if more than one group was serving a population they would step on each other's toes. The goal of the collaborative is to lessen the toe stomping and increase the sharing of resources.

Another issue is trying to find a balance between the two main components of family literacy - adult education and early childhood education. Hoe commented that there tends to be more attention paid to early childhood when talking about family literacy in Cambridge, but it is important to include adult education concerns. An offshoot of that is the issue of differing ideologies - the battle of the whole language vs. the phonics proponents. Hoe noted, "It has come up in the group...and we try to keep the focus on the shared values of family literacy, not the differing ideologies." The group doesn't want one side or the other to draw away from the table and not feel a part of the discussion.

After about eighteen months of working together and creating some goals for future projects, the CFLC applied for and was awarded two grants. One grant for $5,000 was awarded by the Cambridge Foundation and another for $25,000 by the Cambridge Agenda for Children. This funding will enable the collaborative to hire a part-time staff assistant to coordinate the group's meetings, database management, publications, and events. The funding will also allow the collaborative to focus on four main activities in the coming year.

For the third year in a row, members of the collaborative will take part in Cambridge's Family Fun Day, which is in celebration of National Family Literacy Day (see box on back page). State Representative Alice Wolf and Cambridge Mayor Frank Duehay will make appearances at the event, as will Curious George and other special guests. Member groups of the collaborative sponsor booths and activities focused on literacy and supply volunteers to staff them. For example, Cambridge Community Television is offering a computer demonstration of literacy software as well as videotaping the event to help spread the word about the collaborative's work in the city.

Participants at Family Fun Day in Cambridge in 1998, an event that the Cambridge Family Literacy Collaborative has helped sponsor for three years in a row.

The second major activity will be rolled out later in the school year. The collaborative will be initiating a public information campaign including dissemination of the "Five Essential Messages" of family literacy. The campaign will target families with children by reaching out to schools, community and health centers, daycare and early childhood centers, and the community at large. Attention will be paid to the diverse languages and cultures present in the community so that the messages can reach as many people as possible.

In the spring of 2000, a networking day for literacy professionals is being planned in conjunction with the Hood Children's Literacy Project to be held at Lesley University. This will be an important opportunity for all Cambridge literacy organizations to make connections for future collaborative work in the city.

The fourth activity of the group is to continue to expand the diversity and depth of the present membership to reflect the community of Cambridge. The group will outreach to organizations that represent more segments of the population than are currently involved.

One of the first tasks that the collaborative started when they began to meet was to begin compiling a database of all Cambridge literacy programs. A long-term goal for the collaborative is to maintain that information so that families seeking adult literacy services, or ESL services, or other literacy services can access a central office to find those programs in their neighborhood. Ultimately, the hope is to have a Cambridge Family Literacy Coordinator who would be in charge of that information and administer the functions of the collaborative.

The collaborative has done a lot towards bringing people together to work on a more comprehensive approach to family literacy in Cambridge. Sylvia Green and Nancy Hoe have seen changes in the way that Cambridge has responded to family literacy issues in the last few years. Green commented, "The concept of family literacy is not only better understood in Cambridge but better funded." She is more hopeful than two years ago that the city will make a commitment to funding a Family Literacy Coordinator in the next year or two. Also, the Agenda for Children, a city funded committee, has as one of its two goals for this year that all children and families should be able to read. That is the kind of official commitment that will contribute to the success of family literacy efforts in Cambridge.

Ellyn Ruthstrom is a writer and editor and the Project Manager for the Hood Children's Literacy Project.