The Literacyworks staff wish you the best in these challenging times and hope you are staying healthy and safe. We are keeping busy connecting with all of our students making sure we know what their needs are, keeping them supported so they can continue their classes at SRJC.
We’re revamping our grant requests to support our plain language COVID-19 resource page at http://www.literacyworkscenter.org/covid-19. This page is an extension of our Disaster Relief Resource page we did for the fires. We’re collecting plain language material and also developing our own. The target population is our students and the low literacy and low-income North Bay community at large, who is most vulnerable during these disasters.
Student Voices
“All you do has helped me better my life in such a special way. ‘Thank You’ does not express my deep gratitude, yet I must tell you how grateful I am for this program.”
“I work as a full-time preschool teacher, which gives me very little time to go to school and study. The Center has not only helped, financially, but also created a connection. Literacyworks is always checking on me and giving support in any way they can (meetings, tutoring, emails and phone calls). Due to this help, I am closer to my goal of obtaining my AA and becoming an interpreter.”
“As a mother of five children, I would like to be a role model for them and show them that life is not easy, but they can make their dreams possible and their goals reachable by furthering their education. I have no words to express the gratitude I feel for this program. Thank you so much!”
“I would like to thank you with all my heart for helping people like me. You have motivated me to move forward. I am able to learn and accomplish my goals thanks to your support.”
“I thank God for having you in my life at the right time. I truly appreciate your help. Thank you, because this helps and encourages me to push myself even more to make my dream of becoming a nurse come true. This opportunity shows that anything can be achieved if we work hard and that there are people like you who help us to achieve our goals. Thank you so much for helping students have brighter futures.”
Support Our Students!
Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when it comes to suffering during a disaster. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Also, SRJC has been closed until the first of April when online classes began.
Our staff is offering additional support services to ensure our students stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.
Thank you for supporting our students with your donation in this difficult time. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.
Plain Language COVID-19 for the Low-Literacy, Low-Income Community
Issue: Healthcare materials are written at the 10th-grade level or above and not understandable to a large segment of the population
Solution: Provide Plain Language materials that are written at the average American’s reading level (6th-7th grade)
Need for Plain Language Resource Information
Our students are overcoming personal challenges to better themselves and their families by staying enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College and finishing vocational courses for better employment. Many have had traumatic experiences because of the Sonoma County fires and the Coronavirus epidemic, and our staff is offering additional plain language resources to help people process and manage their life changes. Once a hard to serve student drops out, the statistics show very few return to school. 100% of our participating Center adults are low income and low-literacy.
Plain Language materials are written at the average American’s reading level (6th-7th grade) and uses words most readers can easily read and understand. In contrast, most healthcare materials are written at the 10th-grade level or above. The gap between document sophistication and consumer literacy skills is a growing concern in the health field. Using Plain Language to make sure adults can read and understand printed information is part of the solution.
Presenting information in Spanish for adults who are not literate in their native language is not the solution. These adults find it more difficult to learn, read, and speak fluently in a second language. Teaching native-language literacy first can significantly increase the percentage of Latino immigrants who feel confident enrolling and succeeding in English language classes and other adult education classes. Learning to read and write in one’s primary language is vital to success in the workplace, managing health care, and raising a family. Presenting health information in plain language English also helps this population access important resources.
As in past periods of crisis, approximately 90 million Americans have limited health literacy, which puts them at higher risk for poorer access to care and poorer health outcomes. The Sonoma County Community Health Needs Assessment confirms that literacy level, income, and educational attainment is strongly correlated to health: those with low levels of literacy, low income, and education suffer poor health outcomes. Residents in Sonoma County and the North Bay who identify as American Indian/Alaska Native, African American/Black, Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and Some Other Race have a higher percentage of individuals at risk in experiencing poor health results.
Literacyworks Health Literacy
Literacyworks was created to increase accessibility and participation of underprivileged and underrepresented adults, families and children. Our goal is to collaboratively and comprehensively address the literacy needs of families across a spectrum of basic needs essential to the quality of life: family literacy, health literacy, financial literacy, and workplace literacy. To address one literacy need outside the context of the others leaves families only partially served. We are part of an expert health educator team & a national dissemination network of research & evidence-based plain language material to reach low-literacy families.*
LITERACYWORKS CALIFORNIA HEALTH LITERACY INITIATIVE (CHLI) http://www.literacyworks.org/healthliteracy
COVID-19 resource page: http://www.literacyworkscenter.org/covid-19
Resiliency is a concept not new to members of the Bay Area community – fires, droughts, earthquakes, homelessness, and now a virus. Each member of the Literacyworks Center program is low income, has struggled in school, and some cases are new to the United States. What they all share is optimism and high motivation to succeed and improve their lives and their families. This motivation is the definition of resiliency – the willingness to work hard for what you see as possible and to bounce back when things go wrong.
For the one hundred and ten students that make up the current Literacyworks program, having their classes at Santa Rosa JC move from face to face learning to an online teaching format has presented a significant challenge. Very few of our students have ever taken online classes. Some students don’t have wi-fi or a computer to connect with. A few get lost in connecting with the college. The JC has done a remarkable job of providing access in a very short time. It has been Literacyworks staff’s role to help ensure assistance when necessary and provide a list of resources to address the non-academic needs facing our students. To name a few: filing for unemployment, securing and maintaining housing, identifying medical services, securing adequate food supplies, and much more.
Chris Schultz, Center Director
