Foundation Announcements

 

The Florida Family Literacy Initiative:  Recent Grantees

Alliance for Families with Deaf Children
The Deaf Family Literacy Academy serves families with a hearing parent and deaf or hard hearing children in Broward and Pinellas Counties in order to facilitate language, literacy, and fully accessible communication. Program services include home-visits, child literacy instruction, parent education, and parent literacy instruction in American Sign Language, parent support groups and Parent and Child Together Activities.

Apopka Grows
The Grows family Literacy Academy provides Age appropriate children's education, adult education, parent education and parent & child together time through classes, speakers, field trips, workshops, and in-home activities with the goal of teaching English language proficiency and parenting skills, and preparing pre-school children for kindergarten.

Barry University
The Barry University's Florida Family Literacy Academy provides services to migrant and farmworker families in the Homestead area. The program has a Pre-K Curriculum, K-3 Curriculum, and an Adult Literacy / Education component. The program places emphasis on school readiness for Pre-K children and elementary school age children by providing developmentally appropriate activities such as pre-literacy activities and motor skills attainment. Educational outcomes are measured based on age and grade level appropriateness. The adult literacy component emphasizes literacy, ESL instruction and ILA activities.

Calhoun County Public Library
The Calhoun Library Family Literacy Academy provides an integrated four component program through an innovative public library/school/FFLI partnership. The Calhoun Library Family Literacy Academy is a family literacy program serving undereducated parents with children birth to 3rd grade. The Academy provides academic, teacher driven instruction for Adult Literacy/ESOL, children's literacy, parent empowerment and intergenerational literacy activities. Family sessions holistically address the problems that undereducated parents face in providing their families a good quality of life; thus, allowing for peer mentoring and camaraderie. Program outcomes are measured using standardized testing, and qualitative analysis.

Collier County Housing Authority
The Collier County Housing Authority Jump Start, a Florida Family Literacy Academy, provides the migrant farm worker families of Farm Worker Village with English, Adult Basic Literacy, parenting, school/reading readiness for pre-school aged children, tutoring and homework assistance for school aged children, and family counseling services.

DeSoto County Education Foundation/Reading Together Family Literacy Academy
Learning Together stresses the importance of the parent being the child's first teacher by offering assistance in skills being taught in the K-2 setting, suggestions to parents on how to reinforce these skills at home, developing language development activities, building strong family values and assisting parents who may need remediation in their personal reedit ability and English language acquisition skills.

Florida International University/The FLASH at Finlay Family Literacy Academy
The Families Learning at School and Home (FLASH) family literacy academy project will provide a family English literacy initiative at two schools in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools district: Dr. Carlos J. Finlay Elementary School and EWF Stirrup Elementary. FLASH is designed to improve the literacy/ESL skills of parents/caregivers and their children, and to promote the participation of linguistically and culturally diverse parents in the educational process of their children. An intergenerational approach is utilized with culturally relevant curricula and strategies specifically designed for linguistically diverse parents. While in the program, families participate in intensive cycles of 120-140 hours of instruction and intergenerational literacy activities.

Hispanic Unity
Hispanic Unity's Family Literacy Academy provides literacy instruction to Hispanic families and other members of the community. The program is a fundamental building block towards empowering immigrant children and families to succeed in the United States. The program focuses on reading skills for the entire family. Hispanic Unity partners with Broward County Public Schools and other local agencies to provide the following literacy services: English classes for adults, parenting workshops, parent and child together activities, child literacy instruction and parent support groups.

Lakeland Teen Parent-Polk County Schools
Lakeland Teen Parent is a Polk County public school for pregnant and parenting students, grades 6-12. Its family literacy program integrates adult literacy, children's literacy, parent education, and PACT, serving children through five years old. A family literacy coordinator oversees the 30 hour weekly program. Community agencies provide support services. The program has recently become part of the Workforce Education Department. This will provide new opportunities for the students to pursue courses at other technical schools.

Lake Wales Charter Schools
Through the Florida Family Literacy Initiative, Lake Wales Charter Schools (LWCS) Family Literacy Academy will enroll, and provide family literacy services to 50 disadvantaged families. The Lake Wales Family Literacy Coalition, established for the family literacy academy, will continue to advise staff and support families. Our four component program supports families with services that remove educational barriers and maintain a literacy focus for the entire family. Volunteer mentors/tutors work closely with families to meet their goals. In addition, current enrollees will mentor and support new families.

Palm Beach County Education Foundation
The Parent Power Family Literacy Academy's goal is to assist adult students most in need of educational and civic services who are the parents/caretakers of children attending local schools to improve their literacy skills, while increasing parent involvement within the school setting. In support of the President's initiative of leaving "No Child Behind," the ultimate goal of the Parent Power academy is to empower these adult participants to acquire English proficiency skills as well as basic and functional-literacy skills. These skills are necessary to have a positive effect on the literacy of their children through literacy-related activities and to increase their involvement and partnership in their children's education.

St. John Presbyterian Learning Center
St. John's Family Literacy Program aims to break the cycle of illiteracy by providing families the literacy skills necessary to function in society and pursue higher education or job attainment. The program prepares parents to actively participate in their children's education and strengthens the parent and child relationship.