Hope Street Family Center- Family Literacy Program

The Hope Street Family Center (HSFC) is a community benefit program of California Hospital Medical Center. It was established in 1992 in collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles. HSFC's Family Literacy program has been providing early childhood education, adult education, and interactive literacy activities for families since 2001. The program's goals are to: (1) prepare children for success in school, (2) provide opportunities for interactive literacy activities between children and parents, (3) provide literacy training for parents as a first step to economic self-sufficiency, and (4) provide parents with the skills needed for effective participation in their children's education. The program primarily targets parents with limited English proficiency, who have children 0-7, and whose income is at or below 100% of the poverty line. The program prioritizes servicing families with children who have special needs.

The program is offered five days a week, from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., for 12 months. While parents attend adult education and parenting classes, their children receive high quality early childhood education in age-appropriate classrooms. In addition, both parents and children participate in parent/child interactive literacy activities in the children's classrooms. Children who are 5-7 years old, and are enrolled in the Los Angeles Unified School District, receive weekly language arts mentoring in the Hope Street Youth Center. Families are also offered home visitation, health, mental health, housing, and other social services through Hope Street Family Center if needed.

This program is supported by grants from First 5 LA and the Dwight Stuart Foundation.

The program's overall goal is to support parents in their role as their child's first teacher by providing parents with literacy training and children with early development skill building, including language skills.

In 2008, The Family Literacy Program served 41 families, including 18 children with special needs. Thirty-nine adults participated in adult education with a mean 292.9 hours of attendance. Thirty-nine adults participated in parenting education with a mean 65.4 hours of attendance. Fifty-five children participated in early childhood education with a mean 389.25 hours of attendance. Thirty-nine parents participated in parent/child interactive learning activities with a mean 44.7 hours of attendance. The program maintained a high retention rate of 82%.

Approximately 79% of adults in the beginner ESL group and 89% of adults in the intermediate ESL group experienced a gain in reading performance after 100 hours of instruction, as measure by the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) Reading Test. All children ages 0-5 showed developmental and reading readiness progress as measured by the Desired Results Developmental Profile. In addition, the program established written Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with 28 community agencies who agreed to provided support and ongoing assistance with program literacy activities.