[Reading-For-Healthy-Families] Ideas for reaching your 15 families

[Katie Anderson]

Earlier this month you and your supervisors were invited to participate in a teleconference to share ideas and feedback.  During this conversation participants shared a lot of successful early literacy activities they are doing in their communities.  I know that some of you are still struggling to find ways to reach your commitment of providing early literacy education to 15 families so I thought I'd periodically share these success stories with you.  Please feel free to share your own success stories too, and to ask questions.

An advantage small communities have is that everyone knows almost everyone else--where they work, live, shop, and play.  One small rural librarian contacted the local Veterinarian clinic because she knew that the people who work there all have children under 5 years old.  She arranged to come to the clinic to conduct early literacy education while the staff was on their lunch break.  She did the same thing for the local pharmacy.  While there were only two or three people at each work place attending the training, it was well worth her while because it reached those busy working parents that often can't get to the library or to other enrichment programs and activities.   And, word may start to spread from business to business and parent to parent.

This isn't just a strategy for small communities, a library in Washington County partnered with Nike to conduct a parent education session on the Nike campus during the lunch hour.

What businesses in your community employ parents of young children?  
Why would they be interested in allowing you to conduct a parent education session for staff during lunch?
Who could you contact there to talk more about providing early literacy education for their staff?




Katie Anderson, Library Development Services
* Youth Services Consultant * Oregon Center for the Book Coordinator *
Oregon State Library, 250 Winter St. NE, Salem, OR 97301
katie.anderson at state.or.us, 503-378-2528
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/reading-for-healthy-families/attachments/20091002/e65aa882/attachment.html>