Hawaiʻi Literacy
Virtual Community Schools Strategy
SUMMARY
Hawaiʻi Literacy developed a program in partnership with Hawaiʻi Afterschool Alliance and Pear Suite to address the social and environmental factors influencing family well-being and academic success. The goal of the innovation grant was to utilize technology to expand the scope and frequency of services offered by Hawaii Literacy to support the educational, health, social, and environmental needs of underserved and under-resourced families in Kalihi-Palama and Waipahu. Trained staff and community health workers utilized a comprehensive tech-enabled but human-centered well-being assessment tool to address barriers to health and education at home. The results from the assessment were used to identify each family's most significant needs and opportunities and apply that information to develop a personalized set of goals. Hawaiʻi Literacy's libraries served as community resource hubs, and the CHWs, who come from the communities in which they operate, helped build connections, educate, and assess progress through each family's preferred mode of communication. Through regular check-ins, ongoing health education, digital literacy support, and resource linking, community health workers strategically and proactively worked with each family to provide the tools and resources needed to be healthier and more resilient.
PROJECT LEAD : Jenny Lewis
CONTACT :
jenny.lewis@hawaiiliteracy.org
(808) 537-6706
OUTCOME :
We are incredibly grateful for this opportunity to create innovative ways through education, technology, and cultural competency to connect our families to various community social supports and resources to help improve social and health outcomes. Thanks to GEER Grant Funding, we supported over 200 families throughout the grant period, exceeding our original goal of 150 families. We successfully helped families register for SNAP benefits, sign up for Emergency Broadband Benefits, Free and reduced lunch programs, COVID vaccinations and testing, and provided education about nearby after-school and out-of-school programs. In addition, the program helped support families accessing health and social service resources like the food bank, financial literacy services, and workforce development classes through Hawaii Literacy's weekly digital literacy classes. As part of our outreach and engagement plan, we created flyers, videos, and other outreach materials in 4 different languages (Chuukese, Marshallese, Filipino, and Ilocano) to ensure we delivered culturally and language-appropriate outreach education and materials. We reached out to 20 schools, successfully connecting with 4 of the schools as part of our outreach efforts to engage the schools directly, tabled ten different community events, and distributed flyers at our two family literacy libraries.
LESSONS LEARNED :
The schedule for designing and deploying a custom omnichannel communication system (an online platform that can allow community health workers to call, text, and email parents) to assess, educate, track and support families was delayed multiple times. Unfortunately, this impacted our initial timelines for delivering the program and coordinating a successful rollout with the schools. Fortunately, we were able to pivot from a mostly virtual platform to a hybrid model that utilized Hawaii Literacy’s family libraries as in-person community resource hubs. We increased our engagement and retention with the program by embedding our services onsite at the Towers of Kuhio Park and Mayor Wright Homes. The libraries allowed families with limited or no access to phones and the internet to participate in the program, drop in for regular support from staff, and partake in free, language-inclusive foundational digital literacy classes.
