LSTA grant info
At its July 9, 2009 meeting, the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners approved a provisional Open Projects: Serving Children with Special Needs grant for NMRLS. It was a one year grant, focusing specifically on children with autism.
The grant “Serving Children with Special Needs: Children with Autism” matched the needs of this population in six target communities with enhanced library programming and services.
Autism is a developmental disorder with one out of 110 children affected and growing in numbers. Libraries must serve this population equally and as well as any other group in their community. As with any disability, there is room for a lot of misunderstanding, resulting in children and families who do not feel welcome within the library.
Through this project, librarians were trained to meet the specific and special needs of children with autism. Two training sessions on disability awareness gave the project librarians the tools and strategies to incorporate adaptations and accommodations into their current services, resulting in providing inclusive and welcoming programming. Experts were brought in to speak on various aspects of autism.
The project libraries created six circulating kits of materials and resources to be used in conjunction with programming and by families with children with autism.
Recent efforts, such as the very successful “Libraries and Autism: We’re Connected” in New Jersey, prove that with knowledge of the needs of children with autism and education of library staff, this group can feel welcome in the library community. This grant aimed to do just that.
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed