5.7. Other Service Providers

There are a great variety of other literacy service providers based on the information provided on the HRM Library website. Some of these organizations have a very specific focus either in providing literacy training to support employability or in the student population they service. In some cases, they do both such as Anchor Industries which is a vocational centre for adults with intellectual disabilities. It provides basic literacy and work skills training and community employment opportunities.

Those with an employment or employability focus generally also offer life and work skills or pre–employment training in addition to literacy training. They include the following:

• Dartmouth Work Activity Society
• Options Work Activity Program
• Pheonix Learning and Employment Centre
• The Shining Light Learning Academy for Adults

Some of those servicing a specific student population are:

• Metro Immigrant Settlement Association (MISA)
• Kjipuktuk Aboriginal College
• Brain Injury Association of Nova Scotia
• Black Educators Association of Nova Scotia
• Centre for Diverse Visible Cultures
• College de l'Acadie
• Society for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

6. Findings – Barriers and Issues

The findings in this section of the study are drawn from the surveys carried out with the literacy and disability organizations for this project, focus groups and interviews. Other data included in this report can be found in the survey conducted by the Nova Scotia Provincial Literacy Coalition (now Literacy Nova Scotia) and other research materials.

6.1 Findings from Project Surveys

The findings fall into two primary categories – those which are specific to literacy students with disabilities and those which apply to literacy students in general. The project surveys showed that the 2 barriers which the service providers indicated were most significant were those which literacy students in general would experience. They were as follow: