Gleaming light glances off brass rails at Expressly Yours, a recently remodeled cafe in a plaza on the east side of Chandler. Three members of the Family Literacy Advisory Council have agreed to meet here for lunch to continue an ongoing discussion of issues related to welfare reform. Jessica Collins swings through the door, smooth and friendly, greeting everyone with a characteristically open smile and warm hello. As the group settles around their table, Jessica�s face is aglow with the excitement of meeting with two of her favorite �partners,� people with whom she has collaborated over a ten-year period in many sessions like this�high-speed talk-a-thons gauged to solve problems for people in the Evergreen Valley.

Karen Kopp, the Human Services JOBS coordinator, flips open a fat notebook. With a twinkle in her eye and the demeanor of a woman who likes people and is used to being in charge of helping them, she wastes no time and focuses immediately on the issues. A big question today is what to do to help Southeast Asian immigrants who have been in the United States for more than five years but still are not citizens. Soon food stamps and social security payments will be cut off for them. This will affect 126 families in the Chandler area, 455 people in all.

Brian Meier, this think tank�s third member, is concerned about how EVTC classes can get the immigrants up to fourth-grade level in English skills so they can join LVA�s citizenship class. As a dean at the technical college, Brian is Jessica�s supervisor, so to speak, having arranged for EVTC to pay Jessica�s salary for directing the LVA program as part of EVTC�s outreach effort. The way it actually works is clear, though: Jessica is the dynamic visionary with her finger on the pulse of the community, and Brian lets her have free rein. By the time the server has taken the order, this group is in high gear, all talking fast about ways their respective agencies can work together to advance family education.

The talk turns to transportation. Needs are most pressing at the YMCA site where 100% of the family literacy students are now limited English speaking students affiliated with JOBS (Job Opportunities and Basic Skills). Translation: these adults are not proficient in English, and to maintain their various forms of public assistance, most must attend ESOL classes for fifteen hours a week and work at jobs for fifteen additional hours. Almost all are women with large numbers of children and no personal means of transportation. At noon most of the parents need a ride from the family education class at the YMCA to the work site, and then in the afternoon they need a ride from work back to the �Y� to pick up their preschoolers in the family literacy daycare. Things are even more complicated for families with kindergartners; these children spend a half day in the family literacy daycare but need transportation to and from a public school kindergarten for the other half of the day.

The three partners have thought a lot about transportation in recent weeks. If Jessica Collins could buy or lease a van for LVA, the daily lives of adults in the family literacy program would run more smoothly. At her meetings around town, she has raised the issue repeatedly, but so far with no luck. She hoped to use funds from a state grant, but �adult education money doesn�t allow this piece,� she reports. Could EVTC let LVA use a van as part of their outreach? Brian Meier tried, but this idea was also a �no go.� It becomes apparent that the lovely idea�of LVA owning its own van�is, for now at least, only a dream.

The partners dig in and think harder to piece together a workable solution. To implement the plan in upcoming weeks, they will call upon two additional partners, both also members of the Family Literacy Advisory Council�Greg Miller, the community services director for the Chandler Public School System, and Gwendolyn Jasper, the YMCA child care director. After many telephone calls, committee meetings, and in-person conversations among these five partners, and various staff members in each of their agencies, a solution evolves.

Gwendolyn Jasper arranges for the YMCA to use their van to drive parents to and from the work site and family literacy classes at the �Y.� Karen Kopp locates Human Resources funds to reimburse the �Y� one dollar a day per person needing this transportation. Greg Miller meets with managers at the Chandler Transit Company, which contracts to provide bus service for children in the Chandler Public School District. Transit company drivers agree to the special stops needed to transport the kindergartners to and from the public schools and the family literacy sites.

Ever mindful of the need to show appreciation for a kind gesture, Jessica Collins and her staff nurture the good will shown at the transit company: the family literacy instructors often walk out to the bus with the children to thank the drivers; at Christmas an instructor takes candy to the transit company as a gift to the drivers; the head of the transit company is featured in LVA�s newspaper and TV series, �Stars of Literacy.�

These glimpses into the collaborative spirit of this family literacy program exemplify current thinking about the nature of collaboration. In reviewing the literature in her 1997 doctoral dissertation on �The Role of Literacy in Interagency Collaboration,� Joan Sosalla noted that agencies may cooperate in carrying out day-to-day activities, they may coordinate their efforts by sharing some resources, but collaboration involves more complex interaction in all phases of a project as key players plan together, share control of implementation, and evaluate conjointly.

A feature of collaboration is that agencies work together to accomplish outcomes that no single agency could accomplish alone. Family literacy could not exist without �collaboration among education and human services agencies in local communities,� as Judith Alamprese has pointed out, because �addressing the literacy needs of parents and children is complex and requires the delivery of multi-faceted services to meet those needs� (�Integrated Services, Cross-Agency Collaboration, and Family Literacy,� a commissioned paper: http//www.ed.gov/pubs/FamLit/integ.html).

In detailing components for success in cross-agency collaboratives�essential features such as leadership, formalizing agreements, communication�Alamprese also highlights the need for agencies to determine at the outset what each can contribute and what each expects in return. �They must decide whether the payoff from working together in providing services such as adult and early childhood education outweighs the effort that is needed to develop and maintain such services.� Or as Brian Meier often puts it, when the partners are deep in deliberations to solve a problem in the Evergreen Valley family literacy collaborative, �We need a win-win solution.�

Changes prompted by welfare reform will continue to tax the creative powers of the group. A crisis developed suddenly in April 1997 as more parents made the transition to full-time employment and 100% of child care subsidy was no longer available. Family literacy had been granted this money through JOBS and had used it to hire teachers for preschoolers, but now a $7000 shortfall meant cancelling classes for children several weeks early at the end of the school year. Parents, highly valuing the rich learning environment provided for their children by the LVA classes, were distraught about the impending change. To maintain their commitment to the families, the Family Literacy Advisory Committee swung into action, again with the meetings, phone calls, false starts, and finally a solution�$3000 rooted out from budgets in their own agencies plus a $4000 jointly requested one-time special grant from the United Way. With these funds, LVA was able to maintain preschool classes to the end of the school year when the children could be admitted into summer programming at the �Y.�

�Our long-term relationship with United Way in the community made it easy for them to understand our situation,� Karen Kopp explained. �It was a wonderful feeling as an advisory committee to know the community supported us 100%.�

�That gave us the energy to continue to work for our families,� Greg Miller added. �I�m glad collaboration has always been a priority for us.�

Obviously, as welfare reform evolves, longer-term solutions and more radical changes will be needed to maintain family literacy services. LVA�Evergreen Valley, for example, has begun to extend hours, move some programs to work sites, and expand the collaborative to include business owners and managers.

As sites strive to widen the family literacy network throughout the community, leaders may wish to heed advice suggested in the 1997 dissertation (cited earlier) by Joan Sosalla: advertise! One of Sosalla�s key findings during a case study of two family literacy collaboratives in the Midwest was that successful family literacy programs advertise relentlessly. They advertise their programs, they recruit supporters and students, they celebrate successes. They use all formats possible (e.g., posters, TV ads, newsletters, published books by participating students, newspaper articles, a Web page, word of mouth). A site may create a position dedicated to �getting the word out about services, new projects, and yearly cyclical awareness activities.� Collaborative partners may advertise for each other. As Sosalla noted, �Stakeholders believed advertising must be ongoing, and attached to every project, and every success.�

Through all these efforts to adapt programs in line with social change, the key, as Jessica Collins often reiterates, is to remain focused on the needs of the families. Similarly, in a 1996 commissioned paper, Dorothy Strickland emphasized the great need for flexible planning and a clear focus: �Perhaps the best �test� to determine how well program developers link design and development to the perceived needs of participants is by an examination of the adjustments made to programs as those needs are listened to and responded to over a period of time (�Meeting the Needs of Families in Family Literacy Programs,� available on the Internet: http:www.ed.gov/pubs/FamLit/need.html).

Clearly, the highest levels of commitment and creativity are essential as family literacy leaders work to adjust programs in the era of welfare reform.