Associate Professor Jan Hare has been awarded a grant from the federal government to provide culturally-sensitive literacy training for early childhood educators in Aboriginal urban and northern communities across BC.

The Government of Canada has committed $283,625 over three years from the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills. In partnership with the Aboriginal Head Start Association of British Columbia (AHSBC), this grant will enable Hare to develop a curriculum for staff and early childhood educators engaged in designing, implementing and evaluating Aboriginal family literacy programs.

This curriculum will also benefit literacy practitioners and volunteer tutors who work with Aboriginal families and will give these families access to culturally-relevant family literacy programming.

"This funding allows us to develop innovative training opportunities for AHSBC program providers, building their knowledge and skills to support the literacy development of Aboriginal children and enhance the family literacy experiences for their families," said Hare.

The Aboriginal Family and Community Literacy Curriculum (AFCLC), is at the heart of Hare’s innovative training and will be administered to a "learning community" of early childhood educators, family involvement workers and volunteer parents. 

These participants will undertake six, eight-hour online learning modules and three eight- hour face-to-face training sessions. The "mixed-mode" training modules will focus on technical writing for literacy programs, oral communication in the work and home setting, Indigenous approaches to learning, and supporting and assessing literacy learning.  Online instruction will allow greater flexibility for those participants whose access may otherwise be limited to a few regional training centres.

Hare will measure the success of the project using quantitative and qualitative pre and post surveys aimed at assessing the knowledge and skills participants have acquired through participating in the AFCLC mixed-mode training.

The results of Hare’s initiative will be shared with all participants and organizations supporting the literacy needs of Aboriginal families through a range of knowledge mobilization strategies such as website development, conference presentations, reports of project and learning strategies, best practices, conference presentations, scholarly writing and learning tools.

Hare also plans to liaise with post-secondary institutions offering certification in family literacy education to determine laddering strategies and partial accreditation procedures for participants completing the AFCLC mixed-mode training.

"This project represents the kind of collaboration we need to engage with Aboriginal communities and organizations to build their capacity to provide programs and services for Aboriginal people that build on Indigenous knowledges and approaches to learning. We know it is through literacy learning that affirms an Indigenous worldview that we can strengthen our families and communities," said Hare.