Dear Adult Education Supporters and Researchers:

Our coalition wants to encourage you to help us to increase adult literacy, employment and research initiatives throughout the state of Maryland. Please join our coalition and quarterly planning meetings by contacting us at the phone number or e-mail address below. First let me explain what we are all about.

The Maryland Coalition for Literacy (MCLE) was formed by a pool of advocates and practitioners from several agencies in Maryland who were concerned about the exclusion of adults with learning disabilities from employment and literacy services. Hard hit were those citizens with the most limited literacy capabilities (i.e. those in the NALS 1 level).

As a result of their dialogue, coalition members mapped out a long-term plan to lessen the plight of adults with learning barriers. This plan included the following four goals.

Goal 1: To support research investigating acquired and developmental learning disabilities in adults (i.e. aged 16 and up).

Goal 2: To form a long-term multi-agency advisory coalition of literacy, employment and research organizations in order to pool financial and human resources to address the employment and academic needs of adults with learning disabilities.

Goal 3: To form focus groups composed of adult educators, administrators and researchers who will concentrate on developing or improving programs that assist adults with learning disabilities. These programs will concentrate developing consumers' employment and literacy skills so they can better take advantage of academic and economic opportunities.

Goal 4: To create efficient communication pathways for adult literacy providers and employment organizations to share information in order to form alliances, pool resources, provide services and disseminate information.

We look forward to you joining us in our mission to assist adults with learning disabilities so they can become professionally educated and gainfully employed. We also look forward to encouraging collaborative research efforts that will expand the knowledge base, improve services and assist adult consumers with learning disabilities. Again, thank you for your time and effort. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

John Makay
MCLE Director

For more information about becoming a coalition member contact johnm@mcil-md.org or leave a message at (443)739-3275 (cell)