Please help to spread the word about this important project.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Alameda-County-Library-Start-with-a-Story-Project/152837947172?ref=ts

The ‘Alameda County Library “Start with a Story” Project was recently awarded a 2009 Achievement Award for Model Programs from the National Association of Counties (NACo). Below is an article from the National Association of Counties’ County Newsletter:

‘Start with a Story’ Program Promotes Literacy for Inmates’ Families

By Dan Miller
SPECIAL TO COUNTY NEWS

 With little more than a book and a friendly face, Alameda County, Calif. has turned a potentially emotionally draining weekly ritual into a bright spot for dozens of children.

The Alameda County Library’s Start with a Story program supplies books to children waiting in line to visit incarcerated relatives. Now, instead of idly waiting for their turn at the jail, volunteers provide kids with free books and, if they request it, help reading them.

Lisa Harris, program manager for the county’s library system, hatched the idea for Start with a Story while working at a local jail facility to provide adult literacy services to the inmates. After seeing large crowds of kids waiting to see their parents or relatives, Harris took the initiative to go out to the jail one Saturday morning with a table and a selection of books.

“We had tons of kids who wanted to participate and were thrilled that they were able to get a book,” Harris said. “It sort of snowballed from there.”

 By securing additional funding for the program and recruiting volunteers via Craigslist, Harris has turned her experiment into a regular event.

According to Harris, the wait for families to visit their relatives can be lengthy. Depending on when a visitor is selected by the lottery system, the visit can be an all-day affair with the kids cooped up in less-than-ideal environments.

“I’m really pleased that this program has become a real bright spot in this process,” Harris said. “We have many kids who look for us every week. It’s important that kids visit their parents while they’re in jail, and we want to make that a more pleasant experience.”

Harris’ goals for Start with a Story are twofold. Not only does she hope to make kids’ visits to the jails more pleasant, she also hopes to reduce illiteracy in these at-risk families.

“[We want] to expose kids who do not traditionally visit libraries to books. What we’re trying to do is stem the tides of illiteracy that run rampant through inmates’ families,” she said. “We call this program Start with a Story because we can’t do everything for these kids — they have multiple, multiple layers of issues. We do what we can do, so we start with a story.”

As a side benefit, deputies say that having the kids nestled in books has helped make the visitor’s area less hectic.

For Harris, reaching out to serve new and different communities is critical. To that end, every book distributed by the program features a bookplate with information about literacy programs at the library.

“I’m very committed and passionate about libraries being a part of the lives of people who don’t traditionally visit libraries. I’m very passionate that what we do shouldn’t be confined to the four walls that we work in.”

According to Harris, the program has sustained a robust staff of volunteers ranging from high school students to teachers to retirees. While the volunteers often cycle through (she has seen hundreds of individuals volunteer for the program), she maintains at least 30 at any given time.

Harris tries to have four people staffing the book station at a time. She’s been able to communicate with her core group by setting up a Facebook page for the program.

Shayne Callahan learned about the program through Craigslist and has volunteered with it for four months. She was drawn to the program by her desire to work with children.

“What keeps me coming back is the children,” she said. “They’re very friendly toward us. They really like meeting up around the table.”

As a volunteer, Callahan helps kids select an appropriate book by asking their age and making suggestions. If a child asks to be read to, a larger group of kids will often gather to listen.

“Reading is hugely important to me and it’s important to get these kids reading as much as possible,” Callahan said. “I don’t think a lot of these kids have a lot of books around.”

Harris said that the program has engaged frequent jail visitors by purchasing books specifically with their interests in mind. She recalls a pair of middle school-aged boys who were engrossed with Gary Paulson’s survival tale, Hatchet. Now, she says, she buys books with them in mind now.

The program’s success has inspired Harris to investigate translating the program to local homeless shelters.

An interesting site to connect boys and books…

http://www.gettingboystoread.com/

If you find the suggestions on this site useful, please let us know!!

On Saturday and Sunday, September 12 and 13, Start with a Story participants will have an opportunity to write a letter to President Obama.

In celebration of International Literacy Day, and as a kick-off to the Start with a Story Project’s Family Literacy Art Days, children visiting a the project table at Santa Rita Jail or Glenn Dyer Jail will have an opportunity to write a letter to President Obama about, well, anything!

Children can draw a picture, and tell how much they enjoy participating in Start with a Story, and how important it is to them. They can write about  the new school year, or any other subject they like.

All letters will be collected and mailed to the White House by Alameda County library staff.

The White House responds to every letter written to the President, and 
sometimes the President himself responds directly.  We expect that the library and the Start with a Story Project will receive a letter with the presidential seal expressing gratitude for participation and interest in our country and its government, and possibly will receive a letter from the President himself that we will distribute to Start with a Story participants as a reminder to the children and the community of the interest the government takes in all of us.

Art supplies and kids to use ‘em will abound on September 12 and 13 - all we need is you!

If you would like to participate, please contact Raul Rodriguez at rrodriguez@aclibrary.org; (510) 745-1486.

In support of United We Serve, a national effort launched by President Obama to engage more Americans in serving their communities this summer, Reading is Fundamental (RIF)  invites you to READ FOR CHANGE.

Help us collectively log 3 million minutes of reading with children to help us raise awareness about the impact of children’s literacy on the long-term economic impact of the country. The challenge will culminate on September 11 – National Day of Service and Remembrance.

Start reading with kids today! Log your minutes at http://www.rif.org/readforchange/

Child counselors say that for kids, art therapy can be more effective than traditional therapy.

Next to the heart, the child artist has written: ‘My heart is bleeding, my heart is a broken bleeding heart.” Another child has drawn a red bubble, inside of which is written: “I want 2 die.”

All of these young artists — members of a program called No More Victims — have at least one parent who has served time in prison.

The powerful drawings communicate their experiences with pain, hopelessness and confusion as clearly as a thousand spoken words.

Many of these at-risk children were raised in unstable environments, which could lead them to make the same mistakes as their parents, sending them to prison or worse.

But Marilyn Gambrell wants to break that cycle. 

 In 1993, she founded No More Victims Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children of incarcerated parents.

A former Texas parole officer, Gambrell saw firsthand the need to help children and teens who were left behind by one or both parents serving time.

“My goal is for this child to feel healthy enough and healed that they didn’t want to take their own life or someone else’s. Just give them what they need, love them, support them, provide basic needs. They will fly,” she says.

The statistics on prison parents are staggering. According to Justice Department estimates, 2.3 percent of children under 18 in the United States have at least one parent in prison.

Together, 52 percent of state prison inmates and 63 percent of federal prisoners reported an estimated total of 1,706,600 minor children, according to the Justice Department.

In 2000, Gambrell brought No More Victims to the classroom at a local high school where a large majority of students had experienced the effects of incarceration on their families.

Soon after, she opened a community center where teens could take care of basic necessities such as getting food and diapers for their own kids, doing their laundry, and getting, from Gambrell, the love and support they never had.

Some of the teens had fallen victim to sexual assault as children and later received help from No More Victims.

For the program members, the community center feels like home and Gambrell is a lot like a mother. She makes herself available to the kids 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Her approach is simple but effective. Since the program’s onset in 2000, only 22 of the 700 kids who’ve enrolled have ever gone to prison, says Gambrell, and many of those kids graduate high school.

Child counselors say that for getting young people to open up, art therapy can be more effective than traditional forms of therapy.

In the classroom, it could take months or years for her students to share what they’ve been through. But with art therapy, Gambrell has created a safe outlet for them to express their innermost thoughts.

“Kids reflect what’s going on in their life in their artwork,” said Mary Ellen Hluska, a child life specialist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.

In class, Gambrell instructs the students to use red pencil to express pain and anger they felt, and blue to reflect calmness and peace.

“I knew it would be deep because … I had red and blue pencils for them, and no child wanted a blue one,” said Gambrell.

“In the first exercise, everybody requested red,” Gambrell said. “And some children had four and five red pencils. They drew so much and colored so hard that they actually broke the lead.”

State budget to take about $84 million from Alameda County over next two years

by Chris Metinko
Oakland Tribune

With state officials ready to approve a budget to close a $26.3 billion shortfall in Sacramento, Alameda County leaders will have to head back to work to try to balance the budget on a local level.

The budget deal set to be approved in Sacramento calls for $4.3 billion to be diverted from local governments into the state’s finances. Alameda County will lose about $84 million in tax money over the next two years, said County Administrator Susan Muranishi.

The biggest hit will come from the state’s borrowing of nearly $2 billion in property tax money that goes to local governments. Alameda County will lose $40 million from that cut alone. In addition, the county stands to lose $35 million in gas tax money and $9 million in redevelopment money to the state over the next two years.

“There is no way we can look in to forecast and tell people we are not in for a rough ride,” said Supervisor Keith Carson at Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting.

Carson added that some of the details of the new state budget deal still are not clear — likely even to those in Sacramento — but that it is clear local governments will lose out.

To that end, Alameda County supervisors agreed Tuesday to join what likely will be a joint lawsuit with many other counties against the governor and the state finance director to try to get back gas tax money, which funds the county’s public works department.

Despite the lawsuit, county officials know they will have to go without.

 ”We’re clearly at the bottom of the food chain,” Muranishi said. “Clearly we’re going to have a lot of work to do locally.”

Just last month the board of supervisors approved a $2.4 billion budget that closed a $178 million shortfall — the largest ever for the county — and included program cuts and layoffs.

The county budget cut 285 of the county’s 9,316 full-time-equivalent positions, including about 100 positions in the Sheriff’s Office. Many of the job cuts will come from positions already eliminated within the past year, as well as positions currently vacant. Less than half the job cuts will come via layoffs.

The cuts to the county’s Public Protection program, which includes the Sheriff’s Office, were the largest. The county’s Probation Department lost 49 positions, the District Attorney’s Office lost 14 attorney positions, and the Public Defender’s Office lost 15 jobs.

Public protection was not the only affected program area. The county’s health care services cut $30 million from their budgets but avoided layoffs.

The county’s public assistance programs weren’t as lucky, losing $45 million from their budgets and losing 10 vacant positions.

EFFECTS OF PROPOSITION 1A FUNDING LOSS

The California legislature is seriously considering borrowing 8% of library property taxes on 2009/2010. This will force the Library to cut hours, services and programs. This chart demonstrates the significance of the loss of these revenues.

 “Libraries are more essential than ever. Reading is still the most basic survival skill in today’s information driven world.”  William Ecenbarger 

 Please support your library by asking the State Legislature to exempt libraries from the Proposition 1A property tax shift.  

Time is of the essence, so phone calls and faxes are preferred; letters are also welcomed.

 http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/asm-addresses.html

Thank you for your help!

Please join the Alameda County Library Foundation for its 5th Annual Fundraiser – “A Night at the Library”

When: Friday evening, June 5, 2009, 6:30-9:00 a.m.

Where: Fremont Main Library, 2400 Stevenson Blvd., Fremont, CA

Tiickets are $100 / block of 12 tickets: $1000

Proceeds benefit Alameda County Library Programs and Services

The Alameda County Library Foundation was formed in 1996 by a group of civic-minded community leaders to provide supplemental financial support for the Alameda County Library in a time of decreasing public funding. People from all walks of life and numerous businesses, foundations and organizations sustain the work of the Foundation through financial contributions and active involvement in its activities.

The Alameda County Library Foundation is a major financial supporter of the Start with a Story Program.

National Children’s Memorial Flag Day Ceremony 2009

Friday, April 24, 2009 at noon

Alameda County Administration Building

1221 Oak Street, Oakland

Central Plaza

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors and the East Bay Regional Park District invite you to attend the Thirteenth Annual National Children’s Memorial Flag Day as we remember the children who have died by violence in Alameda County and across the United States.  In 2008, 19 children in Alameda County died by violence.   Since the Children’s Memorial Flag Project began in 1994, a total of 339 Alameda County children under the age of 18 have died by violence between 1993 and 2008.

The Children’s Memorial Flag flies in Alameda County whenever a child dies by violence.

The Child Welfare League of America promotes the Children’s Memorial Flag nationwide,

and the National Association of Counties also endorses its use.

– National Children’s Memorial Flag Day

was established by Congress in April 2001 –