Projects

Local Employment Planning Council

    LEPC Logo revised       EMOWPDB logo LLSC Logo

As part of the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development's work to modernize employment and training programs across the province, they have recently launched 8 pilots for Local Employment Planning Councils (LEPCs). Literacy Link South Central, in partnership with the Elgin Middlesex Oxford Workforce Planning and Development Board, is pleased to be coordinating the LEPC for Elgin, Middlesex, Oxford and the City of London.

This initiative is a component of MAESD’s Transformation of Employment and Training Services (TETS), intended to modernize and coordinate employment and training programs to ensure they are effective within each unique region of the province. It is hoped that LEPCs will serve as a key system feature for integrated employment and training services by connecting employers, different levels of government, service providers and other local partners. 

We look forward to working on this LEPC pilot with employers and service providers throughout Elgin, Middlesex, Oxford and the City of London.

To see more about the Local Employment Planning Council project, please visit the LEPC Project Page. 

EO logo

This Employment Ontario project is funded in part by the Government of Canada.


Local Poverty Reduction Fund Project: Community Apprenticeship Skills Support

 CASS recognitionLLSC LogoCASS Logo    

Literacy Link South Central is pleased to announce that we have received funding for a 3-year poverty reduction project, entitled Community Apprenticeship Skills Support (CASS).

Through this project, we will assist 60 individuals moving out of poverty, through adult literacy, employment services, and apprenticeship and into a career. 

We intend to work with three different target populations:

  • Young single males on Ontario Works who are not in education, employed or in training (NEET)
  • Immigrants (men and women) who have less than Grade 12 and who are on Ontario Works, but have been in Canada for 5+ years
  • Persons with disabilities (men and women) on Ontario Works

LLSC, as the lead agency, will be working with several community partners on this project:

  • ATN Access Inc.
  • The Elgin, Middlesex, Oxford Workforce Planning and Development Board
  • The Employment Sector Council of London Middlesex (ESCLM)

The collaborative team supporting the project will work together to assist clients in moving from literacy upgrading through to accessing employment services, and from employment services to accessing an employer for an apprenticeship opportunity. 

For an overview of the project, please view this webinar. 

For more information about this project, please contact us. 

CASS recognition

Funding provided by the Government of Ontario


Developing a Culture of Evaluation

CLO Logo       

Community Literacy of Ontario (CLO) and Literacy Link South Central (LLSC) are delighted to announce a brand-new project called Developing a Culture of Evaluation.

Our Developing a Culture of Evaluation project will help not-for-profit organizations in Ontario to learn about the value of creating a culture of evaluation and how to foster this in their own organizations. This project begins in March 2015 and will be completed in March 2017.

The Developing a Culture of Evaluation project will combine intensive research with a variety of innovative consultation mechanisms, including a digital discussion board, online clinics, surveys, etc.). Further, CLO and LLSC will develop and deliver a series of online training opportunities to support the creation of a culture of evaluation in small not-for-profit organizations. All project tools and resources will be freely available via CLO’s website.

Project deliverables include:

  • 8 online training modules
  • 6 webinars
  • 10 community of practice online clinics
  • An online discussion board on program evaluation 
  • A literature review

Project Update - July 2015

We would love to hear from you! Community Literacy of Ontario and Literacy Link South Central are conducting an online provincial survey with small non-profits (10 staff or less) to gather important evaluation data as part of our Developing a Culture of Evaluation project. To thank you for taking the time to complete this survey, completed surveys will be entered into a draw on July 24, 2015 for a $50 Chapters gift card. Go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/cultureofevaluation, if you would like to complete the survey.

Community Literacy of Ontario (CLO) and Literacy Link South Central (LLSC) are pleased to present this annotated guide  to evaluation resources. This informative guide has been developed as part of CLO’s and LLSC’s Developing a Culture of Evaluation project funded by Ontario’s Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade. To view or download the Guide, click here. 

Community Literacy of Ontario (CLO) and Literacy Link South Central (LLSC) are pleased to share our progress to date on our Developing a Culture of Evaluation project. This project will help non-profit organizations in Ontario learn about the value of creating and fostering a culture of evaluation in their organizations.

Activity Summary

We have a talented team in place to ensure the successful completion of this project:

Project Manager:                    Jette Cosburn

Project Administration:           Joan Beaudry

Community Coordinator:        Anne Marie Curtin

Researcher Writer:                 Anne Marie Curtin – Literature Review

Researchers/Writers:             Joanne Kaattari and Vicki Trottier

– Online Modules and Online Webinars

Subject Matter Expert:           Tamara Kaattari

Project Evaluator:                   Jennifer Kirkham

Our team has been working hard this spring and the following activities are underway:

  •  Resource review:  features 41 annotated resources/tools and will be posted to CLO’s website on June 30, 2015
  •  Key Informant Interviews/Online Provincial Survey:  the team has started conducting interviews with 30 small (10 staff or less) non-profits across all regions of Ontario. If you weren’t contacted about these interviews, not to worry – you can still provide input via our online provincial survey which will be open from June 22 until July 9, 2015.  Please check back to CLO’s website at www.communityliteracyofontario.ca/evaluation-culture if you would like to complete the survey.  Key findings from the interviews and survey will be compiled and included in a report which will be posted to CLO’s website by the middle of September 2015.

Upcoming Events!

 Please stay tuned for more information about these exciting interactive project activities:

  • Online discussion board on program evaluation: Starting in September 2015 you will be invited to participate in an online discussion board that will share and explore evaluation and a culture of evaluation. This discussion board will provide participants with an opportunity to build an online community of practice. Now that’s exciting and innovative!
  • Community of practice online clinics: Please watch for more information about our planned live online sessions. The first session is already scheduled for November 2015!  These live interactive clinics will focus on key topics that you have identified as being important as well as key topics that our researchers have identified as “need-to-know”.
  • Launch of 8 online training modules: These easy-to-use and easy-to-access online modules will be available at the end of March 2016.  More topical information will be released in January 2016.
  • Online webinars: Starting in May 2016 you will be able to join us as we share what evaluation means in small non-profits.  More details will be shared closer to the delivery dates.

 For more information about the project, please

For more project updates, visit www.communityliteracyofontario.ca/evaluation-culture/

Ontario logo
This innovative project is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade under the Partnership Project. The Partnership Project is designed to help strengthen Ontario’s not-for-profit sector, and we are honoured to be part of this initiative.


Labour Market Partnership - Phase 3 (2015)

Exploring the Gap Between London’s Immigrants and Local LBS Programs

Literacy Link South Central is pleased to announce the launch of our new Labour Market Partnership Project, "Exploring the Gap Between London’s Immigrants and Local LBS Programs." This project will build upon the information gathered and relationships built during our 2014 Job Creation Partnership project "Using Technology to Facilitate Connections between Literacy and the Broader Community." 

The goal of the LMP project is to research and identify tools and resources that the literacy field can offer to help bring London’s immigrant community closer to employment. We will focus our research on jobs that have a high demand for workers, the skills that immigrants already bring to the labour market, and how an increase in literacy skills can help better connect London’s immigrants to those in-demand labour market opportunities.

A dedicated team of 4 Literacy & Employment Researchers will be working on this project, including 3 members of last year's Job Creation Partnership project. We look forward to their continued efforts to create an effective connection between London's newcomers and immigrants, and our local literacy programs.


This Employment Ontario project is funded in part by the Government of Canada


Labour Market Partnership - Phase 2 (2014)

Literacy Link South Central is continuing its Labour Market Partnership project. In this second phase, we are coordinating seven initiatives in partnership with some our provincial colleagues. Literacy Link South Central is taking the lead on the following initiative:

Helping London’s Lost Boys                                                            

Literacy Link South Central continues to explore opportunities to engage young men between 18 and 29 years of age in learning.  During this phase, we will build on the findings from our recent project (an overview webinar of this 2013 Project can be found here). 

We will explore:

  • best practices for marketing, engaging and keeping male youth in programs
  • how these best practices can apply to literacy and basic skills programs
  • which agencies in London, Ontario offer programming specific to this population
  • how we can increase partnerships between these agencies and the local literacy and basic skills programs. 

Through this project we expect to increase our ability to attract and respond to the needs of this target population. We will also increase our understanding of where these youth come from and where they can go so that we can help ease their transitions.

 

This Employment Ontario project is funded in part by the Government of Canada


Using Technology to Facilitate Connections between Literacy and the Broader Community (Job Creation Partnership Project)

Literacy Link South Central is pleased to announce the launch of a Job Creation Partnership project, beginning January 20, 2014. This project has three distinct objectives, as follows:

1. To increase the adult literacy community’s awareness and comfort level with digital technology. To accomplish this objective, we will:

  • Enhance digital technology training available through literacy organizations
  • Promote hands-on learning and experimentation with technology
  • Bring new opportunities to experience digital technology to adult literacy learners

We will also increase our understanding of how to incorporate gamification principles into existing adult literacy training. Recommendations will also be made for modifications to specific training material that will enhance its effectiveness.

To view the Maker Curriculum Modules, click here. 

2. To promote adult Literacy organizations to employment services and other organizations using videos and digital storytelling. We will also develop a video storytelling campaign showing potential learners from various cultural backgrounds that literacy organizations welcome them and others from their cultural community. 

To view the Outreach Promo videos, click here. 

3. Focusing on tasks that would be most valuable to each literacy agency, we will interpret tasks to align with the Ontario Adult Literacy Curriculum Framework (OALCF). Tasks will be translated into French where applicable to support French first-language learners, and Milestones will be edited to plain language for easier translation to ASL.

We are proud to be partnering with literacy, technology and cultural organizations throughout London to achieve these goals. Our partners for this project include:

 Maker Bus  The MakerBus  

   The African Community Council  

  The Canadian-Iraqi Turkmen Culture Association of London 

The Latino Canadian Community Corporation 

If you have any questions about this Job Creation Partnership project, please contact Project Manager Summer Burton at 519-681-7307 or literacylink [at] gmail [dot] com

This project is funded by Employment Ontario 


Labour Market Partnership

Since January 2013, Literacy Link South Central has been working on a Labour Market Partnership project together with six other Ontario Literacy Networks. Each of the strategies that are related to this project focus on individuals who have less than a Grade 12 level of functional ability and who struggle to find jobs with their skill levels. In Ontario, there are many programs that have been designed to address the needs of this target group. However, there is a need for community coordination in order to use this range of programs to achieve an employment outcome for lower-skilled Ontarians. 

You can view the final project report here. 

As an end result of the project, a series of webinars were delivered to our partners across Ontario in December 2013. These webinars will be available for viewing by clicking on the links below:

Webinar #1, delivered by Literacy Link South Central: Literacy and the Young Single Male and Targeted Employment Support for Job Seekers with Low Literacy Skills 

(or view the slides here)

Webinar #2, delivered by QUILL Learning Network and Tri-County Literacy Network: Mastering the Puzzle Pieces - Relationship Building

(or view the slides here)

Webinar #2 also includes a best practices guide for multi-agency centres.

Webinar #3, delivered by Peel-Halton-Dufferin Adult Learning Network: Clearer Sightlines to Employment in Dufferin County

(or view slides here)

Webinar #4, delivered by Project READ Literacy Network: Labour Adjustment and Literacy Activities

(or view slides here)

Webinar #5, delivered by Adult Basic Education Association and Literacy Link Niagara: Supporting LBS Practitioners in Linking Learners to Employment

(or view slides here)

Webinar #5 also includes supporting documentation:

This Employment Ontario project is funded in part by the Government of Canada


Career Ladders: Helping Communities Toward Integrated and Responsive Service Delivery

Essential Skills Ontario and its partners, Literacy Link South Central, the Literacy Network of Durham and Region, and Literacy Northwest, are pleased to announce their collaboration on this new initiative. 

The project will test the approach that uses a series of sequential education and training programs (stackable credentials) that enable individuals to secure employment within a specific industry or sector. Focusing on populations who are under-represented in the labour market, the majority will be job-seekers and people who are on income support with low educational attainment. 

Career ladders can provide us with the opportunity to unite around the common goal of providing lower-skilled workers with concrete steps towards better skills and better jobs.  

If you'd like to read more about the Career Ladders project, visit Essential Skills Ontario's website:

www.essentialskillsontario.ca/career-ladders 

This project is funded by Employment Ontario. 


LBS and Apprenticeship: Supporting Clients through Curriculum Development

Literacy Link South Central has completed a new project to support clients through apprenticeship, in partnership with:

  • The LearningHUB
  • Literacy Northwest
  • Elgin, Middlesex, Oxford Workforce Planning and Development Board
  • Workforce Planning Board of Grand Erie
  • Apprenticeship Network
  • Apprenticesearch.com
  • Fanshawe College

The project developed three modules for literacy practitioners to use with clients who have identified apprenticeship as their goal. The modules were designed for face-to-face delivery and will be modified by Avon Maitland District School Board to be offered online through the LearningHUB. 

To view a webinar about the Apprenticeship Curriculum, click here

To view the resources, visit our resources page

This project is funded by Employment Ontario. 


Coordinating to Bring Low-Literacy and Marginalized Clients Employment

This Labour Market Partnership (LMP) project focuses on individuals in the Western Region of who have less than a grade 12 level of functional ability and who struggle to find jobs with their skill levels. While there are many programs designed to address the needs of this target group, there is also a need for community coordination to effectively use this range of community programs to achieve a successful outcome for lower-skilled Ontarians – namely, employment.

By drawing upon the service planning experiences and expertise of Regional Literacy Networks in the Western Region, this Labour Market Partnership proposal will research 10 different strategies to effectively increase the supply of workers in the Western Region of Ontario and connect these workers with gainful employment.

Literacy Link South Central is spearheading 2 of the 10 strategies:

Strategy 1: Work with Employment Services job developers to explore ways to connect lower skilled literacy learners with employers interested in accessing the training incentives offered through Employment Ontario.

Strategy 2: Leverage resources from two other contracts – Providing Educational Interviews to Ontario Works Recipients and Developing Curriculum for Single Males on Ontario Works (18-29 years of age) – and combine them with local Employment Services to develop strategies to bring young single males through literacy to employment.

 

This project is funded by Employment Ontario. 


Matching Professional Development with Service Coordination Expectations

This project, ending March 31, 2013, will result in a compilation of information and resources on best practices in service coordination. The information that is gathered will be the basis for training and workshops on the topic.  Literacy network staff will especially benefit from this project, given their expanded role of service coordination within MTCU programs, with Ontario Works offices and now with MCI and EDU programs.

We all strive to provide seamless pathways for clients as we work towards increased efficiency, effectiveness and customer service. All of these desired outcomes are affected by the quality of service coordination in Ontario’s communities.

This project is funded by Employment Ontario. 


Targeted Literacy Programming and Outreach for Young Single Males on Ontario Works

This project, which ends March 31, 2013, proposes to develop and pilot literacy curriculum for single males on Ontario Works (OW) who are between the ages of 18 and 29.

There are at least 2,000 single males on OW in London that have been on the caseload for longer than 12 months and/or who have less than Gr. 12 education. And this is not a new trend. Since 2007, the London OW office has been tracking this specific demographic and the statistics show an upward trend in the number of single males between 18 and 29 who are accessing Ontario Works.

The demographic of single males on OW has been increasing in numbers, without a corresponding increase in participation in local literacy programs. It’s important to engage this group of individuals because although they are young, they are forming a significant portion of those OW clients who have been on the caseload for longer than 12 months.

Through this project we will talk to young single males on OW to find out what they want from literacy programming – both in terms of content and delivery method – and then develop and pilot programming for this population.

In the end, we hope to see more single males (18-29) on OW participate in London’s adult literacy programs and connect with local employment programs.

This project is funded by Employment Ontario. 


Enhancing Pathways

“Enhancing Pathways” is a project that is taking place in 6 areas of Ontario until the end of March 2012.

The first Enhancing Pathways project was done in the Waterloo and Peel regions. That project brought together the agencies that provide language and literacy programming within those areas. The goal was to enhance communication and referrals among the agencies.

Now, in London and Middlesex, service providers are meeting to explore how we can work together towards the same goals.

Our Project Goals:

  • Increased understanding among the agencies of the three systems – Literacy Basic Skill (LBS), English as a Second Language (ESL), Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC)
  • Enhanced knowledge of transition points and efficient pathways for learners
  • Identification of gaps and needs within the current continuum

The “Enhancing Pathways” Committee is a working group that grew from the education sub-committee of the London and Middlesex Local Immigration Partnership. “Enhancing Pathways” project committee members include:

  • City of London
  • Centre for Lifelong Learning
  • Cross Cultural Learner Centre
  • Ontario Early Years Centre
  • Literacy Link South Central
  • Thames Valley District School Board

More about the London and Middlesex Local Immigration Partnership here.

Enhancing Pathways newsletter - September 2011

Join the Conversation!


Clear Writing Standards

OTF

The Ontario Trillium Foundation has funded Adult Basic Education Association (ABEA, Hamilton) to conduct a two-year project in partnership with Literacy Link South Central and Quality in Lifelong Learning (QUILL Network, Walkerton).  

The project deliverables include:

  • Developing Clear Writing standards
  • Developing an online training module to support Learning Networks in Ontario
  • Creating an accreditation process on a fee-for-service basis

We thank the Ontario Trillium Foundation for this grant and their support of this project. 

Trillium logo


Connecting Literacy and Employment through Essential Skills

The Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES) funded Literacy Link South Central to conduct a two-year project (June 2009 to May 2011).  The primary goal of this project was to develop seven workbooks that embed Essential Skills activities within employment-readiness tasks.  With these workbooks, literacy programs and employment programs can provide clients with employability skills and literacy/Essential Skills simultaneously. 

We are excited to announce that the project has ended and that the workbooks are now complete.  The target skill level for all Essential Skills activities is level 2. 

The topic areas include:

  • Discovering your strengths and skills
  • Deciding on the best job for you
  • Researching your job
  • Job search strategies
  • Marketing yourself -part one (cover letter and resumes)
  • Marketing yourself –part two (interview skills)
  • Maintaining your employability

Workbooks can be accessed online here

If you have any questions about this project, please give us a call at 519-681-7307 or literacylink [at] bellnet [dot] ca (email us).


The Meaning of Essential Skills for Literacy Practitioners

Click here to see the most up-to-date project report. 

The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities funded Literacy Link South Central to complete a one-year project, titled The Meaning of Essential Skills for Literacy Practitioners. Deliverables from the project were circulated to each Literacy and Basic Skills program in Ontario, and include:

  • A CD with 3 PowerPoint presentations
  • An Essential Skills guide for literacy practitioners

The guide provides a foundation for literacy practitioners to learn more about the 9 Essential Skills and the Essential Skills profiles. A brief history of the development of the Essential Skills and the Essential Skills profiles has been included. Current best practices for integrating Essential Skills into Literacy and Basic Skills programming have been identified in the case studies. 

Literacy practitioners from across the province were surveyed to determine their current level of Essential Skills knowledge and to gain an understanding of supports that could be developed to help practitioners understand the role of Essential Skills in task-based training delivery. 

If you have any questions about this project, please give us a call at 519-681-7307 or literacylink [at] bellnet [dot] ca (email us).


Workplace Literacy and Essential Skills Project with Goodwill Industries

The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities funded Literacy Link South Central to conduct a one-year Workplace Literacy and Essential Skills project (August 2010 to March 2011). LLSC partnered with Goodwill Industries to complete this project.

Goodwill Industries has 10 retail donation centres across southwestern Ontario. Literacy Link South Central worked with its literacy partners (other literacy networks, literacy programs and practitioners) to do five things:

  • Complete educational interviews with all Goodwill staff at the retail locations (approximately 200)
  • Complete standardized literacy assessments with all interested Goodwill staff (approximately 90)
  • Develop online curriculum modules:
    • Orientation to Goodwill Industries – video
    • Employee Orientation – video
    • Introduction to Computer Literacy
    • Introduction to Online Learning
    • Customer Service
    • Understanding Quality Goods
    • An Introduction to Bill 168 and Workplace Harassment
    • Internal Policy Refresher
    • Health and Safety
    • Business Metrics
    • AODA – Accessibility
    • WHMIS
    • How to Read a Pay Stub
    • Family Literacy
    • Loss Prevention
  • Profile 5 Goodwill occupations to break down the skills that are required and the level that skills are required for:
    • Pricer/Sorter
    • Hanger
    • Donor Greeter
    • Driver
    • Baler Operator

If you have any questions about this project, please give us a call at 519-681-7307 or literacylink [at] bellnet [dot] ca (email us).


Spreading the Word Together

Thank you to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for funding the "Spreading the Word Together" project. Through their generous support we were able to offer our Literacy Awareness workshop and Clear Writing workshop for free to community service organizations in the counties of Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk. During this 18 month project we connected with 41 organizations and trained 399 staff in Clear Writing or Literacy Awareness.

We will continue to work in partnership with the community agencies of Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk to keep the topic of literacy at the forefront. We will continue making written materials easier to read and understand. Together, we will continue to "Spread the Word."

If you have any questions about this project, please give us a call at 519-681-7307 or literacylink [at] bellnet [dot] ca (email us).