ESOL Curriculum Sharing – REPLICATION GRANT RECIPIENT!

Casserly House and ABCD Boston-Roslindale ESOL will partner to increase shifting needs of immigrant neighbors and adult learners on social determinants of health as reported by ESOL adult learners. With our local partner, ABCD Boston-ESOL in Roslindale, Casserly House will maximize the benefit of having ESOL lesson plans and annual community workshops on social determinants of health.  In sharing the teaching tools and best practices in ESOL teaching strategies that were developed with the initial First Literacy Grant in 2023-2024, Casserly House hopes to increase the scale exponentially, benefitting far more immigrants in our neighborhood than would be possible for Casserly House to engage by itself.

Partner Program: Casserly House
Replication Program: Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) – Roslindale
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 32
Award amount: $1,000 (awarded to Casserly House and ABCD- Roslindale)

Mother/Child Reading Program for Incarcerated Women

The Criminal Justice Organization (CJO) of Hampden County’s mission statement is “to implement, develop, create and/or expand correctional programs in the areas of education, counseling and vocational programming…”. This project is a mother/child reading program for women incarcerated at the Western Mass Regional Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee, MA. The goal of the program is to improve literacy skills for both the mother and child(ren) involved in the program. Funds from the grant will provide age-appropriate books for children and assist the mothers in learning to read aloud with their children. Both virtual and in-person sessions will be available to the families. In addition, the funds will help support the transportation expenses for families bringing the children to their mothers and will offer a stipend to graduate level students studying early childhood education and are supporting the mothers who will read books with their child(ren). The CJO firmly believes that a renewed interest in reading will generate a genuine enthusiasm for learning and help to offset learning losses that occurred during the Covid pandemic.

Partner Program: Criminal Justice Organization of Hampden County, Inc.
Community: Western Massachusetts
Students Served: 40-50
Award Amount: $7,500

Casserly House ESOL Consultant

The Casserly House will work with a consultant to assist all volunteer ESOL staff in the development of curriculum that will serve the newly arrived immigrant with little or no English-speaking skills. The goal is for the consultant to introduce volunteer teachers to effective teaching tools and best practices in ESOL teaching strategies and student needs assessment. The consultant will also collaborate with community partners to offer “teachable” workshops for neighborhood immigrants to address priority needs, such as affordable housing, workplace equity and rights, and other topics of concern. The desired outcome of the project is to sharpen volunteer teaching skills that will benefit the newly arrived immigrants and offer them real-life resources to help them in their daily lives.

Partner Program: Casserly House
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 32
Award amount: $3,750 (2nd year funding)

¡Sí, Se Puede! (Yes, You Can!) Passing That Last HiSET Exam

MUA has 45 HiSET and Pre-HSE seats funded by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and matched by foundations. In any given year, MUA has roughly 14 HiSET attainments. However, there are a dozen or more students who have “just one more exam to go” and have separated from the program due to motivation, pregnancy, work conflicts, and/or housing issues. The goal of ¡Sí, Se Puede! (Yes, You Can!) Passing That Last HiSET Exam is to provide students with a weekly class, asynchronous practice exams, HiSET resources, motivation, and coaching to pass that last exam and obtain their HiSET certificates, ultimately leading to a next step such as college, job training, employment, and/or advanced employment.

Partner Program: Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA)
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 248
Award amount: $4,536

Students Are Leaders

Adult learners come to the Community Learning Center (CLC) with a wealth of experience and interests; however, given their part-time attendance and multiple outside commitments, they are limited in their ability to develop and share their knowledge outside of their classrooms. Students Are Leaders will provide leadership skills, development, and activities to and with interested students. The program will focus on cultural sharing, activities to learn about and address the climate crisis, information about rights and responsibilities, and communication within and outside the CLC about the programs offered. Through training and subsequent presentations, students will develop transferable leadership skills and strengthen the sense of community and belonging within the program. The goal is greater student engagement and persistence, strengthening each student’s voice in program decision making, and for students to become ambassadors informing and engaging the entire student community through workshops and presentations.

Partner Program: The Friends of the Community Learning Center
Community: Metro North
Students Served: 800
Award amount: $4,350

Juvenile (16+) Justice Diversion Program

The Juvenile Justice Diversion Program aims to create a comprehensive program that will prevent youth and young adults from having a criminal record. The program will hold first time offenders accountable for their behavior without resorting to legal sanctions, court involvement and oversight, or threat of fines, fees, or incarceration. The program will include preventative and interventive work with young adults, direct contact with local law enforcement chiefs, judges and prosecutors to design Individualized Diversion Plans for at-risk students to equitize opportunities for this population, prevent future contact with the court system, increase educational and employment outcomes, and create pathways for success.

Partner Program: Charlestown Adult Education
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 185
Award amount: $7,500 (2nd year of funding)

Participatory Action Research Project Focused on ABE Recruitment, Enrollment, and Persistence

The Literacy Project (TLP) seeks to implement an action research project, led by our adult learning students, to collect information relative to recruitment, enrollment and persistence in a rural adult basic education program. This organizational project will help to strengthen The Literacy Project’s policies and programs by learning what adult learners want and need to be successful in increasing their literacy skills so they may achieve their education and career goals. We anticipate 15 students (3 from each of TLP’s five classrooms) will participate in a series of workshops, led by a TLP teacher, to create a market research tool, implement the tool, analyze the data and present their results. This project will ultimately increase the literacy skills of adult learners as they work on their writing skills by creating interview questions and exploring best practices in research projects.

Partner Program: Literacy Project
Community: Western Massachusetts
Students Served: 225
Award amount: $11,025