Welcome back! Can you believe it is 2016? We hope you all had the opportunity to spend some well-earned time relaxing, enjoying the holiday season and making memories with family and friends. 2016 promises to be another year full of change and development within the Community Adult Learning Program.

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something." - Neil Gaiman

Wishing our CALP Community all the best for 2016.

Doray Veno, Treasurer
CLN Board of Directors

Last Chance to Win a Chapters Gift Card!

As part of our ongoing series of free online learning opportunities for CALPs, the CLN is partnering with Alberta Culture and Tourism once again to offer a series of webinars this spring.

Just log in to your CALP Portal account at www.calp.ca and access the poll right from your dashboard. All you have to do is select your top three choices for sessions that you think will best support your organization's staff and/or board members.

When you participate in this poll, you will be entered to win a $25.00 gift card from Chapters. The deadline to respond and be entered to win is Friday, January 8th, 2016!

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

There is hope in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those who wish to
make those dreams a reality.

- Jonas Salk

Save the Dates: Provincial PD Events

SAVE THE DATES!

Training Institute
May 2 - 6, 2016
Deerfoot Inn, Calgary

Literacy & Learning Symposium
September 26 - 30, 2016
Fantasyland Hotel, Edmonton

Presented by:

Co-hosted with:	Supported by:

Information coming soon to the CALP Portal... Stay tuned!

Culture of Collaboration: New Resources Added to Support Your CALP

After more than three years of supporting dozens of great community engagement events and dialogues across the province, CLN has put together a vast library of tools and templates to help CALPs host their own events.

Did you know that the CALP Portal now has more than 100 resources available, including:

• information packages
• tip sheets
• authentic examples of
• event invitations
• sample agendas
• dialogue tools and processes
• reports to community

This year, CLN's goal is to support 30 Culture of Collaboration events.

If your organization has been thinking about taking part in this initiative, now is a great time to start planning for a spring event.

Your Regional Support Staff would love to hear from you to give you more information about what other supports and funding are available to your CALP!

LIFE (Learning is for Everyone) Training Now Available Online

The LIFE (Learning Is For Everyone) on-line course is aimed at helping practitioners increase awareness, knowledge and skills to work with adult learners with learning disabilities (LD) and/or ADHD. Many of these learners may have faced a lifelong pattern of frustration and failure, and have difficulty making progress towards their learning goals.

As an adult foundational learning practitioner, it is important to understand, recognize, and support the unique learning challenges and needs of these adult learners. LIFE Training can provide you with the tools to help support these learners.

Originally developed by the CanLearn Society, and piloted with 25 practitioners in the Calgary area, this training can now be accessed throughout the province as a self-directed online learning course. Each module is available at a cost of $50.00 per participant.

For more information, or to register, contact the CanLearn Society at workshops@canlearnsociety.ca or call 1-403-686-9300.

You can also learn more at http://canlearnsociety.ca/literacy/adult-learning/

Featured Resource: Newcomers Resource Guide

Advanced Education has recently updated the Resource Guide of Services for Newcomers to Alberta, originally drafted in 2012.

The Resource Guide includes key definitions related to residency and English Language Learning, and provides links and phone numbers to support knowledgeable referrals to newcomers, including information on Language Assessment Centres, Settlement Services Agencies, Alberta Works Centres, LINC, ALIS, Foreign Qualification Recognition, Professional Regulatory Organizations, Student Aid, Immigrant Bridging Programs, Supports for Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs), and more.

All this month, the Newcomers Resource Guide is the CALP Portal's Featured Resource, available from your "My Portal" Dashboard. Just log in at www.calp.ca.

Note: if you do not have an account for the Portal, contact the CLN at office@calp.ca, and we will be happy to get you connected!

CALP Portal Pro Tip: Using Relevancy Settings to Search

As we continue to add more resources, events, blogs and other content to the Portal, it can seem a bit overwhelming at times. We get it. That's why we have incorporated a number of features to make it easier for you to find what you need, when you need it.

All the content that gets shared through the Portal is "tagged" in different ways, to make it easier to search. One of the most efficient ways to narrow down your search is to use the "Categorized as" filter in the Portal search Relevancy Settings.

There are currently just over 20 different pre-defined categories, covering specific topics, from Adult Reading, Adult Writing, ESL/ELL, to Marketing, Operations/Administration, and CALP Training. You can see them all in a drop-down menu, by clicking on the blue bar under "Categorized as". Select a category by clicking on it to get a check mark. You can select and (and un-select) as many categories as you would like, to narrow or broaden your results:

You can use this feature to find resources, events, blog posts and documents and discussion shared in your groups.

Happy searching!

Dates and Deadlines

Please be sure to click on the Portal "Events" tab to keep up to date on upcoming Professional Development and Training Opportunities

January 22nd: Leading with Literacy Breakfast (Edmonton)

January 27th: Family Literacy Day

February 15th: Family Day (CLN Office closed)

February 21st - 27th: Freedom to Read Week