Category: Richmond - Digital Health Literacy Project

Internship with LEAP

7/13/2016

Literacy for Every Adult Program (LEAP) is a very impressive program. LEAP allows adults who hasn’t been fortunate with electronics, to get that experience. I interned for Ellen Kersten every wednesday. These days consists of getting to the LEAP office at 9, getting Laptops ready to go, and leaving the office by 9:40 to the reentry center. AT the re-entry center we set up laptops for our students and then help them get logged in to the Digital health site. After that we would got back to LEAP and have 30 minute lunch break and get ready to go to our next spot. Community heritage center was much harder to teach because it’s a senior home. They have many simple and repetitive questions. Explaining can get really exhausting but it pays off really well because they are so appreciative of everything. When we would get back to LEAP, I would collect new and improved sites of services around Richmond and make maps.
Digital health exposes adults to what they need for their everyday life. It allows them to feel part of a group and have the knowledge they need for their health.
Digital health is public health. LEAP is not only providing their students with information about Health services, but they are going to the root and teaching them how to get it for themselves.
Praseela Rai
LEAP intern 2016

Lunch and Literacy at the Richmond Library

6/30/2016

Summer is the season for vacations and rest, but for many families in Richmond it can be a time of increased need and stress. According to Kidsdata.org, more than 20,000 children and teens (70% of K-12 students) are eligible to receive free or reduced price school meals in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. When many schools close their doors during summer break from mid-June to mid-August, children in low-income families are left without regular access to healthy food.

In response, the Richmond Library has partnered with the West Contra Costa Unified School District, Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, California Summer Meal Coalition, and the California Library Association to provide summer meals to children and fresh produce to adults.

The Richmond Library joins a network of more than 100 other public libraries in California that have implemented Lunch at the Library programs. Learning from other library’s success, the Richmond Library is coupling meal distribution with health-promoting educational opportunities. Many children stay after lunchtime for the Library’s Summer Reading Heroes program, where volunteers, interns, and staff read with kids to prevent summer learning loss. In July, we will be starting a Digital Health Literacy class for parents with grant support from the California Library Association.

The Richmond Library’s main branch (325 Civic Center Plaza) provides lunch for children 0 to 18 years-old on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12-1pm. A complete list of the other summer meal sites in the West Contra Costa Unified School District is here, and a map of all sites in Contra Costa and Solano counties is here.

A May of Many Accomplishments

5/31/2016

The Richmond Digital Health Literacy Project accomplished a lot this month! Here are a few highlights of what we have been up to:

Prepared and presented a poster at the Institute for Healthcare Advancement (IHA) Annual Health Literacy Conference in Anaheim, CA.
Received an award for Best Published Material at the IHA Awards Luncheon, including a plaque, $500 check, free conference registration, and hotel and airfare.
Finalized a Formative Evaluation Report by our external evaluators, Communities in Collaboration | Comunidades en Colaboración
Started Digital Health Literacy classes at three new partner sites: Barrett Terrace Apartments, Community Heritage Senior Apartments, and the Reentry Success Center.
Celebrated with 25 Digital Health graduates across three sites: LEAP, Crescent Park Apartments, and Richmond High parents group

See our Photos Page for pictures of all of these exciting events. Thank you to our many partners and supporters for making all of this possible. Extra special thank yous go out to:

Richmond Digital Health Literacy Project Coordinator, Ellen Kersten, presents a poster at the Institute for Healthcare Advancement Conference. May 5, 2016

Plaque and check received in commemoration of winning the 2016 Health Literacy Award

Sherry Drobner for her outstanding leadership on this project; Patricia Ruis for being the backbone of organization for the many, many moving parts that keep this project going; Celina Hall, Joan Murica, Lucero Ramirez, and Anne Ronquillo for leading Digital Health classes; Willie Locket at ReliaTech for facilitating the delivery of all of the refurbished laptops; and Roi Evron at the City of Richmond IT Department for printing our IHA poster (see image below; to view the large printout, stop by the LEAP computer lab).

We will be convening a partner meeting in June to share more information about these accomplishments and get input on future directions for Digital Health Literacy work in Richmond ad beyond. Feel free to comment below or contact us with any questions, suggestions, or to learn how to get involved.

Richmond Public Library’s Adult Literacy Program: A National Model for Volunteers and Digital Literacy Acquisition

2/29/2016

From 2010-2013, the Richmond Public Library joined as a lead partner in the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) to study tutor facilitated digital literacy. During the 3-year period, Richmond library’s program LEAP, served 1,933 learners.

Findings from this three year effort speak to the value of our local library and its programs. According to the research, “The program designed and implemented by LEAP was first and foremost a people-centered process. As a result, learning interactions gave rise to mutual respect.”

The findings concluded that “libraries are especially able to connect with a diverse array of individuals who might not otherwise have opportunities to learn digital literacy or to volunteer…the impact of such programs goes far beyond the development of individual’s digital literacy skills and both expand and improve the overall health and well-being of the community.” All of the research briefs and data are available from Portland State University's Literacy, Language, and Technology Research Group.

The authors wrote a great summary of their work, "How do Marginalized Adults Acquire Digital Literacy? Findings from a 3-year Study." The Tech Tips for Teachers blog and website is a great resource for digital literacy instruction.

Health Information Training--October 29th and 30th

10/22/2015

City of Richmond Staff and Community Partners are invited to attend a Health Information Training taking place on Thursday October 29th, and Friday, October 30th from 8:30am-12:30pm in the IT Training room at Richmond City Hall (450 Civic Center Plaza). The same training will be offered on both days to allow as many people as possible the opportunity to attend. Attendees will learn how to find reliable information online to help residents answer questions related to health conditions, health insurance, health services, and healthy living.

The training will be lead by Kelli Ham, Consumer Health and Technology Librarian, with the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, UCLA Biomedical Library and Ellen Kersten, Digital Health Literacy Project Coordinator, with the Richmond Public Library.

The draft agenda is below for more information. Please RSVP using the form below or contacting Ellen Kersten via email or 510-307-8002 to let us know which day you plan to attend.

Health Information Training Agenda
A. Overview of health in Richmond (Ellen, 15 min)

Community context—demographics, health behaviors, health outcomes
Health in All Policies—City efforts to integrate into all decisions and programs
Health equity—a process and goal

B. Role of library in addressing community health issues and opportunities for collaboration (Kelli, 90 min)

Overview of core competencies
Identifying health information and communication needs in culturally and linguistically diverse populations
Ethical and legal issues with providing health information
Best practices—examples of collaboration and outreach
Discussion about local opportunities

Break (20 min)

C. General health resources and training (Kelli, 90 min)

Key websites (e.g. MedlinePlus) and search techniques
New technology and health trends (e.g. apps, fitness tools, social health networking)
Examples of resources for low-literacy and multi-lingual populations, with particular attention to main health concerns in Richmond such as diabetes, asthma, nutrition, and safety

D. Local health resources and training (Ellen, 15 min)

Digital Health curriculum on LearnerWeb (www.richmondhealth.learnerweb.org)
Key websites, apps, and organizations

First cohort of Digital Health learners

10/22/2015

The Richmond Digital Health Literacy Project has been leading successful Digital Health computer classes at the Nevin Community Center. The class has grown from 7 to 18 students over the past five weeks! This first cohort includes English- and Spanish-speaking learners from the YES Nature to Neighborhoods Wellness Navigators program. More students will start the training program during drop-in computer lab hours at Richmond’s Literacy for Every Adult Program (LEAP) on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2pm-5pm.

Some of the topics covered so far include finding reliable health information online, using google maps to locate health services, and understanding health insurance. Additional learning plans on the topics of physical wellness, family wellness, and community wellness will be added over the next month.

To volunteer to help out with the classes or for more information, please contact us.

First site partner meeting a success!

8/14/2015

We had our first site partner meeting on August 3, 2015. It was great to get so many local health and digital literacy experts together in one room! Fourteen people, including representatives from five local organizations and four City of Richmond departments, came together to provide feedback on the digital health literacy curriculum development, field testing, and launch plan. The meeting notes and slides are posted on the Meetings webpage of this site.

In the first picture below, we are watching a short (1 min) overview video called What is Health Literacy. The video shows examples of why it is important to be able to find and understand health information--a great reminder of why we are doing this work!

Local resources to support health: your input needed!

8/3/2015

One goal of the Richmond Digital Health Literacy Project's online training is to help learners connect with local resources in their community to support their health. We're compiling location and contact information for local resources and transforming this information into a series of online, publicly available maps to help community members find, contact, and navigate to nearby services. The image here is an example map of medical services, including primary care, urgent care, and emergency care. Let us know what you think! Are there any medical services in the area we are missing?

We know that health requires more than just medical care, and we have compiled resources across eight additional categories: dental services, eye services, emotional wellness/mental health services, certified healthcare enrollment support, social services, food resources, arts and enrichment, and exercise/fitness/nutrition. We will share the maps for all of these resources in a few weeks when we finalize the information. In the meantime, we could use your help! Please review the compiled resources and share your feedback:

Are we missing any resources?
Is the contact info, website, or notes sections about any resources inaccurate or missing key information?
Are there additional categories of services we are missing? (NOTE: If you're wondering why we don't list park locations, that is because Richmond parks data can already be found on the City's Parks and Public Facilities site, and a map of all parks, including city, regional, state, and national parks, is compiled here by GreenInfoNetwork).
Are there other formats you would like to see this data shared? (NOTE: here is a pdf version of the resource list if you prefer to view it that way instead of the google spreadsheet)

You can make comments directly on the google spreadsheet for us to incorporate (see the comment button in the upper right corner of google docs/drive), or you can contact us directly. We look forward to hearing from you and creating a complete and accurate collection of health resources for our project participants as well as the broader Richmond community.

WEConnect visits Richmond!

7/1/2015

Enthusiastic volunteers, passionate community partners, colorful signs and balloons, and helpful resources of all sorts transformed the Richmond Memorial Auditorium and Convention Center into one-stop-shop for health and well-being this past Saturday, June 27. Richmond residents were able to enroll in free and low-cost healthcare with the help of trained counselors, get free medical screenings and counseling, receive resources about many topics from financial services to immigration laws to discounted utilities, and receive a free bag of healthy groceries. The event was hosted by WEConnect, a program established in 2005 by former First Lady Maria Shriver and now operated by the California Endowment. WEConnect tweeted that 750 people attended the Richmond event, and 140 of them enrolled in low to no cost health coverage. Hopefully many more will be able to use WeConnect's engaging and well-organized website to connect with additional federal, state, and local services such as food assistance, mental health counseling, legal services, immigrant resources, employment and education opportunities, financial planning, low cost auto insurance, and more. The Digital Health Literacy Project will be using the WEConnect website as a resource for learners to engage with in our digital health literacy curriculum. We also look forward to partnering with WEConnect to update their expanding resource map. A few photos from the event are below, and more can be found in an album on the WEConnect facebook page, including a picture of Healthy Richmond staff and Richmond City Manager Bill Lindsay sharing their vision for health in Richmond at the event's Dream Wall for All.

Family Justice Center opening and Major Taylor Bike Fiesta

6/23/2015

Sherry Drobner, Program Manager for the Richmond Literacy for Every Adult Program (LEAP), and Lizbet, a LEAP student, at the Family Justice Center grand opening event on June 4, 2015.

Digital Health Literacy Project staff attended two exciting events in Richmond earlier this month.

On June 4, the West Contra Costa Family Justice Center held a grand opening event at their new location, 256 24th Street (just south of Macdonald Ave). The Center serves victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, elder abuse, and human trafficking. It used to be located at a police substation at Hilltop Mall, but the new location is a "one-stop" center that brings together many public and community-based organizations under one roof. The Center expects to serve 2,000 survivors within its first year. Each client works with a Navigator to connect them to a wide range of services.

One June 13, the Building Blocks for Kids Richmond Collaborative (BBK) hosted their fifth annual Major Taylor Bike Fiesta at Lincoln Elementary School. We hosted a table with the Richmond Public Library and Literacy for Every Adult Program (LEAP). A big thank you to LEAP volunteers Alex and Darra Owen, LEAP staff Hilaria Wright and Celina, and Library staff Deborah Bonet for helping out at the table. Also thank you to Half Price Books in Berkeley for donating children's books that we passed out. Residents also enjoyed the other materials at our table, including English-Spanish dictionaries, stress balls, pens, pencils, notebooks, flyers about Library and LEAP programs, and craft materials to decorate bikes. BBK did an excellent job coordinating a fun and memorable event, including free healthy and delicious food, zumba classes, bike repairs, games, and music. We are already looking forward to next year's Bike Fiesta!