1 / 18

Sunshine Coast Libraries Adult Literacy Program

Sunshine Coast Libraries Adult Literacy Program. State Library of Queensland Literacy Forum 29 July 2014. History. Program began 25 years ago Small specialist staff Workforce of volunteer tutors Became an RTO 15 years ago Program predominately funded by external grants. Program.

batsone
Download Presentation

Sunshine Coast Libraries Adult Literacy Program

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Sunshine Coast LibrariesAdult Literacy Program State Library of Queensland Literacy Forum 29 July 2014

  2. History • Program began 25 years ago • Small specialist staff • Workforce of volunteer tutors • Became an RTO 15 years ago • Program predominately funded by external grants

  3. Program • Sunshine Coast Libraries offers a flexible Literacy and Numeracy program for adults within our community to assist them to become functionally literate.

  4. Some Facts • Best practice - the only public library service in Queensland to offer this program • RTO – offering accredited training • Conversational English classes • Specialist Adult Literacy staff and teachers • All our tutors are volunteers trained through our RTO

  5. We aim to do the best for our students by: • Providing quality training • Providing them with quality tutors • Having quality staff to support tutors and students.

  6. Why be an RTO? • We are a not-for-profit RTO • We have to find money in our budget or through external grants to support the program • Good potential volunteers look for programs offering accredited training

  7. RTO as part of a Library Service • Gives our RTO a central community connection • Libraries already have meeting rooms, computers, digital equipment, collections • We have dedicated adult literacy collections in our libraries stocked through an informed purchasing policy

  8. Benefits • We can offer nationally accredited training to our LLN participants (10344NAT Course in Adult Literacy and Numeracy) • We train our own volunteer tutors in a nationally accredited course (30979QLD Couse in Volunteer Community Adult Literacy Tutoring) • We can issue our own certificates • Gives us an advantage when applying for funding • Gives us an advantage with referrals from job agencies and community organisations • Presents a professional approach to the way the program is conducted

  9. Volunteer Tutors • Most volunteers interested in this program are retired professionals • They ask if the training we insist they do is accredited • They are the backbone of our workforce • Offer their time and expertise for free • Fantastic library supporters • Always open to new learning • After training they become part of Sunshine Coast Council as council volunteers

  10. What we look for in our tutors • Good communication skills • Patience • Informality • Interesting backgrounds - work, interests • Belief - in the person's ability to learn. • Creativity • Empathy • Encouragement / Enthusiasm • Flexibility • Listening skills • Non-judgemental • Respect • Knowledge • Humour • It's never to late to learn to read and write - ABC interview

  11. Trained Tutors – the final product • To have all necessary technical skills/knowledge to do the job • To fully understand their role and responsibilities to this program and to Sunshine Coast Council • To be actively matched with a student in the program

  12. What does being an RTO involve for our organisation? • Being compliant with all ASQA training requirements • Having a registrations audit every 5 years at least • An enormous amount of paperwork, data collection and reporting • Expense • Becoming familiar with the VET industry

  13. Partnerships • As an RTO we can partner with another organisation for a fee to do training for them (in the past: Caloundra Community Centre; Noosa Library). • Local RTO’s that train in other VET courses can partner with us to do literacy and numeracy training with their students.

  14. Qualifications of Adult Literacy staff in an RTO • They all need to be trainers with current qualifications. • Course material and assessment material used in the two courses on our Scope needs constant review. • Regular PD needs to be done by staff. • Need to source other local RTOs who do similar training for course assessment validation.

  15. Future Predictions for the RTO within our organisation • Expansion of Scope. • Other parts of Council able to do their own training. • Partnerships. • Increased connections with local small business and job training providers. • Changing diverse community needs drives program expansion.

  16. Finally • It’s all about the students!

More Related