1. Policies:

a. Program Location: The college usually has responsibility for determining the location of the LBS program. There are many considerations taken into account when the program location is determined, involving transportation and availability of other services, including college services. The overriding concern for most colleges, however, is cost. LBS administrators and practitioners agree that an off-site location best serves the needs of their learners. It is, however, the learners themselves who make this point most strongly. They recognize that they have different needs from the post-secondary students and the need to develop their self-confidence before mixing with this larger group.

A best practice with respect to location:

The location of LBS classes should reflect the particular characteristics of the class. Having LBS off site in a central location best recognizes these particular characteristics: proximity to referring agencies, academic counselling as part of the process rather than a function of an independent department, the fragility of many learners coming back to school.

The reality of LBS funding and College priorities, however, mean that for many programs a central off-site location is not possible. Where this has been the case, College-based LBS programs have identified characteristics which they feel should be in place when an on-site location is selected.

A best practice in the selection or modification of an on-site location:

A College on-site location should be chosen recognizing the particular characteristics of the LBS learner. Among the physical considerations should be a separate entrance, a common space reserved for LBS learners and an area for support personnel dedicated to the LBS program.

Approach: If an off-site location is desired it is necessary to convince the college policymakers of this by emphasizing the special nature of the program and its participants. Statistically this is relatively easy to do through studies on adults returning to school, their dropout reasons and their own stories of success. Evidence of the advantages of physical separation from other types of learners is given in the article by Grace Malicky and Charles Norman, Perceptions of Adult Literacy Learners about Themselves and Their Lives.