Commitment to families key to learning center

BOULDER — Community services are usually offered a la carte. One provider helps babies. Another assists school-aged children. Yet others help couples, working people and those with legal problems.

Family Learning Center is unique in that it offers all of these services and more under one roof, said Executive Director Brenda Lyle. ?You would be hard-pressed to find another agency that offers all of the services we do in the same place.

?Our commitment is to provide a meaningful opportunity for low-income families to master the skills necessary for success in school and life,? she said.

Instead of a hit-or-miss approach, FLC uses what Lyle calls a ?holistic approach.?

?We prevent and address sociological issues,? she said.

This includes preschool, day-care, academic and recreational programs, adult education, literacy for all ages, crisis intervention for families with legal problems or a lack of food and meeting space.

?Many low-income families don’t have a place to get together for birthday parties or family celebrations,? she said. ?Our building is used seven days a week.?

The 3,000-square-foot structure is primarily classroom space and a computer lab. The facility also includes a licensed kitchen for teaching life skills and to help host events.

Combining traditionally community-based and school-based programs into one program is what makes FLC unusual, said Jan Hittelman, a licensed psychologist and program development specialist who helped FLC develop its mentoring program.

?It’s really a strong program having both community- and school-based programs together,? he said. ?Not only do they get people in the community to donate their time, mentors pay $700 per year to supplement the program.?

The annual budget for FLC is $750,000, raised through private donations, foundation funding, special events, corporate funding and some government funding.

Research is another unusual feature of FLC.

?You might go to an after-school program,? Lyle said, ?but if you ask them to show you where the kids are academically when they started and at the end of the year, they would be hard-pressed to give you that data.?

Third-party annual evaluations and in-house standardized testing helps FLC know how the kids are doing.

For example, the academic program ?Ignite Your Potential,? helped raise students grade point averages. In March 2001, 70 percent of the students in the program had C+ averages. By June, the number rose to 80 percent, and by fall, 94 percent were above C+.

?All children can achieve,? Lyle said. ?There’s no reason why they can’t. We insist that our kids achieve.?

Summer school students, for example, are required to arrive by 9 a.m. and attend until 5 p.m., five days per week. Subjects include math, science, language arts, social studies and life skills, which help the students form career goals.

As ambitious as FLC’s programs are, the agency employs only 10 part-time and eight full-time staff. More than 200 volunteers take up the slack.

?Our number one goal is to stabilize funding and survive during a recession,? Lyle said. ?Then we want to focus on meeting the needs of the kids in our program and the ones on our waiting list.

?We want to perfect our program so we have better results than we do now. What we do works.?

on Facebook on LinkedIn