This week, members of Congress, led by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) in the Senate, and Congressman Sam Johnson (R-TX) and Congressman John Yarmuth (D-KY) in the House of Representatives, introduced a resolution acknowledging the broad benefits of Family Service Learning. The Resolution designates the week of September 12 through 16, 2016 as National Family Service Learning Week.

Family Service Learning is a multi-generation method developed by the National Center for Families Learning (NCFL). Through this approach children and families learn and solve problems together with active participation in thoughtfully organized service that is conducted in and meets the needs of their community, is focused on children and families solving community issues together, and applies 21st century college and career readiness skills for children and relevant workforce training skills for adults.

Through the Houston Public Library’s (HPL) partnership with Toyota and NCFL it had the opportunity to be able to further its commitment to providing programs and services to help families in the community to build on their strengths and achieve their learning goals. The Family Service Learning program helped families improve workforce and literacy skills while enabling parents to become stronger teachers and role models for their children.

The award-winning Toyota Family Learning Program at HPL was offered both in English and Spanish and consisted of multiple components – Parent and Child Together Time; Child Time; Parent Time; Families Mentoring Other Families; and Family Service Learning. Embedded in the components were learning opportunities such as: Digital Literacy, the Family FUN Plan, Parent Power, Lego Robotics, Tumblebooks, and Wii Are Family.  This fun-filled opportunity was educational and life-changing for the participants.

Throughout the program, families, individually and collectively spent up to 70 hours setting goals and making progress toward them by completing service learning activities together, engaging in college and career readiness activities, using technology for educational purposes and mentoring other families to do the same. Together families accomplished many goals in the classroom, their homes and in the community.

“I am pleased to see Congress recognize the importance of Family Service Learning,” NCFL President and Founder Sharon Darling remarked. “Whether addressing crime, fostering health and nutrition, or helping people reclaim their communities, when families — especially low-income families — are treated as an integral part of the learning process, children, families, schools, and communities all stand to benefit. Family Service Learning equips family members with employability skills to improve their socio-economic status. And it creates stronger ties between low-income populations and their own communities,” she added.

Results from an independent evaluation have found that Family Service Learning can:

♦ Expand voice, social capital, and networks of participating adults;
♦ Expand self-efficacy and self-confidence;
♦ Increase formal learning, including content knowledge, research, and academic skills;
♦ Increase technology skills;
♦ Increase opportunities to develop work-based skills; and
♦ Improve employment status — 46% of participating adults secured a job or improved their existing work status.

Houston Public Library is proud to have been selected by NCFL and Toyota in a highly competitive process, with more than 1,000 grant applicants, as the first-ever library to receive the Toyota Family Learning grant and become the flagship family learning project of its kind in the Houston community.

The Toyota Family Learning Program at the Houston Public Library has received considerable support from the community as whole including receiving two proclamations from the City of Houston in support of Family Learning Day and Drink Water Houston Day, and was honored to be awarded the National Centers for Families Learning first ever Innovation Showcase Prize for its development of the Families United Now (F.U.N.) Plan at the 2015 Families Learning Summit.

Over the course of the program, families, individually and collectively, spend up to 70 hours learning  to set goals that strengthen the family unit and make progress toward them by completing assignments, service learning activities together, engaging in college and career readiness activities, using technology for educational purposes and to create their Family F.U.N (Families United Now) Plan, and mentoring other families to do the same. The impact of the program has been extremely positive and has resulted in meaningful change for the families involved. Together families have accomplished many goals in the classroom, their homes and in the community.

The program is being implemented at Houston Public Library’s McCrane Kashmere Gardens Neighborhood Library, Carnegie Neighborhood Library & Learning Center for Learning, as well as the Oak Forest Neighborhood Library in partnership with North Sanchez Charter School. Key partners include Collaborative for Children who provide parenting workshops and Houston Community College who has supported the mentoring and service learning components.  Additionally, the program has strong volunteer support from the Junior League, Marathon Oil, and local college students from Houston Community College System and University of Houston-Downtown.

The National Center for Families Learning (NCFL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing our  nation’s literacy challenges by engaging all family members in learning, with a primary focus on parents and children living in poverty. Pioneered by NCFL, the two-generation family literacy approach harnesses the power of parent-child bonds to help those who are most at risk of failing economically, emotionally, and socially reach their full potential. Family Service Learning is NCFL’s latest innovation on its two-generation family learning model. This approach to community building, currently being implemented in 20 U.S. communities, was developed with generous support from Toyota, NCFL’s partner in family literacy and education efforts for 25 years. This approach also has gained funding support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Skillman Foundation, PNC Grow Up Great, the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, and the William R. Kenan, Jr., Charitable Trust.

NCFL develops and utilizes innovative programming and tools that focus on empowering families. Its programs are evidence-based and have been shown to improve student attendance, achievement, and behavior (including decreased absenteeism) while simultaneously building adult capacity for college and career readiness.

The Houston Public Library (HPL) operates 35 neighborhood libraries, four HPL Express Libraries, a Central Library, the Houston Metropolitan Research Center, the Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research, The African American Library at the Gregory School, and the Parent Resource Library located in the Children’s Museum of Houston. With more than eight million visits per year in person and online, HPL is committed to excellent customer service and equitable access to information and programs by providing library customers with free use of a diverse collection of printed materials and electronic resources, Internet, laptop and computer use, and a variety of database and reference resources with live assistance online 24/7.

♦ For  further  information visit the Houston Public Library at www.houstonlibrary.org on Twitter@houstonlibrary or call 832-393-1313.