Foundational Training in Family Literacy The Centre for Family Literacy in Alberta (http://famlit.ca), in collaboration with a pan-Canadian advisory group, developed national Foundational Training in Family Literacy. The goals of this training are to provide a common base of knowledge to family literacy practitioners across Canada and to give professional credibility to the field. This nationally-recognized training is now being offered all across this country by various organizations. In 2002/3, Community Literacy of Ontario offered national Foundational Training in Family Literacy to 21 community-based literacy practitioners across Ontario. In 2003/4, CLO provided the same training to a further 23 participants. Evaluations and feedback from course participants were very positive. A detailed evaluation summary report is available for each year. Based on this feedback and the number of ongoing inquiries that CLO received about the course, CLO applied for (and received) funding to re-deliver the training in 2004/5. From January to June 2005, the Foundational Training in Family Literacy was delivered online to participants working in community literacy agencies and Early Years Centres across Ontario. 22 individuals successfully completed the course and graduated in June 2005. CLO’s intensive online training took place once per month from January to June 2005. Each module was four hours in length. Our dedicated participants further augmented this rigorous online training with self-study of the course manual, homework assignments, supplementary readings and an online discussion group on AlphaCom. CLO’s online training was based upon the 10-chapter, 370-page Foundational Training in Family Literacy course manual. An anonymous, online evaluation was included at the end of each workshop. The response rates were quite high with over 92% of participants completing the evaluations each month. Content was evaluated at the end of each of the six workshops, but other questions were asked at different points in time to evaluate various workshop components. The sixth module also included the opportunity for participants to take a more global look at the course as a whole rather than just at the specific module. Throughout the course, modifications were made based on the feedback received from the evaluations. Throughout the course, evaluations were overwhelmingly positive, and many of the participants took the opportunity to share both what they had learned and what they liked about the training. It is clear from the evaluations that the online delivery of the National Foundational Training in Family Literacy was a resounding success, both in terms of online delivery and of the actual content of the training. |