Recommendations

For Adult Literacy/ABE Practioners

1. Recognize that getting off drugs/ out of the sex trade/ away from a violent relationship is difficult, frustrating, long-term work. Learn how these challenges affect learning and how you, the educator can best support the learner.
2. Find out from learners what the learning space should look like. What would make it welcoming and safe? What resources should be available? What activities? How can you involve the whole person in learning?
3. Encourage your organization to provide training in harm reduction principles as well as strategies for keeping people safe when engaging in risky behaviour.
4. Educate yourself and your colleagues about the reality of your learners’ lives. If they have turned to drugs to help them make sense of a senseless situation, what needs to happen to turn that situation around? How can you support that change in your learning centre?
5. Working with street-involved, drug-using learners is difficult, stressful work. Recognize this, take care of yourself and demand that your organization supports mental health and self-care for their staff.
6. Learn from those who work on the “clinical” side of Harm Reduction by building partnerships with people in the health field, including mental health and drug/alcohol counselling.
7. Just as you learn from health care workers, they can learn from you. Help to raise awareness about literacy issues in the community and help other organizations to make their messages accessible and inclusive. Make sure learning is on the agenda at community events.
8. Connect with other learning organizations in the community. Share information and develop referral strategies that provide a continuum of learning.
9. Seek out opportunities (conferences, workshops) to share ideas with other practitioners trying to adapt HR principles to the literacy situation.
10. Pay special attention to peer learning and promote/support your peer volunteers. When possible, encourage peers to apply for paid work in your organization.
11. Look for and develop materials and activities that reflect the reality of the learners you work with, and materials that emphasize the whole person. Support organizations that develop materials on violence and learning, addiction, Harm Reduction and related issues.
12. If we are going to contribute to Harm Reduction we need to adjust our attitudes and describe what our learners are doing in a way that emphasizes their success. Find ways to measure progress that takes account of on-linear learning and small steps.