This practical guidebook presents trends, research-grounded strategies, and field-based solutions to challenges of working in community-based literacy initiatives. A comprehensive guide for practitioners, this book addresses best practices for implementing, maintaining, expanding, and evaluating community-based literacy initiatives. The contributors in this volume help readers shift thinking from merely considering, "How can communities support literacy?" to "How can literacy help us create, support, and strengthen communities?" Organized into four parts – on building community through literacy, program design, case studies from the field, and program evaluation – chapters cover research-based and innovative practices in a diverse range of populations and settings, including family services, adult literacy initiatives, community centers, and tutoring programs. With an abundance of praxis-oriented examples and real-world strategies from top scholars and practitioners, the book serves as a roadmap for essential topics, including funding, writing grant proposals, handling audits, and conducting research within program settings. With templates, models, planning tools, and checklists ready for immediate use, this book is an invaluable field manual for individuals involved in community literacy work, researchers, and students in literacy-oriented courses either at the undergraduate or graduate levels.

Addressing the often fraught and truncated nature of educating new writing instructors, Conceptions of Literacy proposes a theoretical framework for examining new graduate student instructors’ preexisting attitudes and beliefs about literacy. Based on an empirical study author Meaghan Brewer conducted with graduate students teaching first-year composition for the first time, Conceptions of Literacy draws on narratives, interviews, and classroom observations to describe the conceptions of literacy they have already unknowingly established and how these conceptions impact the way they teach in their own classrooms. Brewer argues that conceptions of literacy undergird the work of writing instructors and that many of the anxieties around composition studies’ disciplinary status are related to the differences perceived between the field’s conceptions of literacy and those of the graduate instructors and adjuncts who teach the majority of composition courses. Conceptions of Literacy makes practical recommendations for how new graduate instructors can begin to perceive and interrogate their conceptions of literacy, which, while influential, are often too personal to recognize.

This practical guidebook presents trends, research-grounded strategies, and field-based solutions to challenges of working in community-based literacy initiatives. A comprehensive guide for practitioners, this book addresses best practices for implementing, maintaining, expanding, and evaluating community-based literacy initiatives. The contributors in this volume help readers shift thinking from merely considering, How can communities support literacy? to How can literacy help us create, support, and strengthen communities? Organized into four Parts--on building community through literacy, program design, case studies from the field, and program evaluation--chapters cover research-based and innovative practices in a diverse range of populations and settings, including family services, adult literacy initiatives, community centers, tutoring programs. With an abundance of praxis-oriented examples and real-world strategies from top scholars and practitioners, the book serves as a roadmap for essential topics, including funding, writing grant proposals, handling audits, and conducting research within program settings. With templates, models, planning tools, and checklists ready for immediate use, this book is an invaluable field manual for individuals involved in community literacy work, researchers, and students in literacy-oriented courses either at the undergraduate or graduate levels.

Digital Media and the Preservation of Indigenous Languages in Africa: Toward a Digitalized and Sustainable Society presents cutting-edge epistemological debates, academic case studies, and empirical research from African scholars on the intersection of digital media technologies, artificial intelligence, and the preservation of Indigenous languages in the continent. This edited collection provides a methodology for African researchers, practitioners, and marginalized communities to integrate digital technologies into their lives to foster innovation, advance the documentation and preservation of underrepresented languages, and promote African-centered epistemologies. Contributors to this edited volume argue that African societies should acknowledge and embrace digital media platforms. Despite these platforms’ potential as sites of epistemic colonialism, they are essential for promoting ways of life that reflect the diversity and importance of Indigenous cultures. For Indigenous languages and local epistemologies to flourish in this rapidly evolving technological era, African communities must employ a variety of contemporary practices and strategies to document, protect, and preserve ways of being that have formerly been relegated to the periphery.

Disaster Mental Health Interventions uses DSM-5 diagnostic criteria and the latest research to help build disaster mental health intervention skills that will last a lifetime. Students and emerging professionals across the fields of mental health counseling, social work, school counseling, spiritual care, and emergency management will appreciate the accessible tone, level of detail, and emphasis on practice. Case studies and anecdotes from experienced professionals add an additional level of depth and interest for readers.

I became a librarian because of my interest in how reading affects people, how it can lead to insights and help people transform their lives...library services and materials help them in their efforts to change and grow. Outcome measurement can assess how well libraries do that.—Rhea Joyce Rubin from the Preface Library services and programs that not only meet goals but can also demonstrate these results are more likely to secure repeat funding. By evaluating and presenting outcomes, libraries can document the positive work they do in a concrete way and gain financial support. According to Planning for Results expert Rubin, outcome measurement lets libraries evaluate how they affect their users' quality of life. This latest addition to the PLA-sponsored Results Series uses familiar task breakdowns along with key terms in a step-by-step, service-oriented format so that readers can master the outcome measurement process as they: Enhance library programs using evaluation techniques Use and customize the 14 step-by-step workforms to address unique needs Gather and interpret statistically accurate data to demonstrate outcomes Measure, evaluate, and present outcomes to attract funding Applying these concepts in examples and in two running case studies, an Internet class for seniors, and a teen mother-tutoring program brings the model to life. The "Toolkit" includes tips on creating evaluations, coding data, and selecting a sample. By assessing the impact of services in users' lives, public library directors and program managers demonstrate to funding bodies their accountability and the effectiveness of programs, thus positioning their libraries to secure maximum funding.