The Iowa New Readers of Iowa Coalition Conference: Building Health Literacy Leaders
From LiteracyTentWiki
The 17th Annual New Readers of Iowa Coalition Conference:
“Building Health Literacy Leaders.”
This conference is a promising practice in itself because it brings together new readers with professionals from the fields of health, literacy and learning disabilities, and comes up with solutions and recommendations with input from all of these groups. At the end of this account you will find the policy statement from the New Readers of Iowa, which includes 7 simple recommendations for health care providers and systems that represent promising practices for health care professionals that come straight from the patients who can be hard to reach and communicate with clearly.
Following is an account of the conference by Archi Willard, New Reader and Health Literacy Advocate:
The day before the conference a group of ten Iowa New Readers and some
representatives of Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines, Iowa did a
walk through of their hospital. The New Readers made little suggestions
that will be helpful for people to find their way around in the hospital easier. This walk through was suggested to us by Rima Rudd from Harvard
School of Public Health.
There were people at the conference from Adult Education (ABE), the
field of health (Iowa Health System), The Learning Disability field and
New Readers (from Iowa, Illinois and Missouri). After three years of
working together, the Iowa Health System and the New Readers of Iowa
have come along way together. The different groups had many different
conversations and we all came away thinking a little differently about
literacy and health literacy. Having people from all four groups was
very helpful.
Margie Gillis, ED.D a Senior Scientist from Haskins Laboratories, and
Cindy Brach, M.P.P. Senior Health Policy Researcher at the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality, were the main speakers at the
conference. There were workshops on Understanding myself as a New
Reader, Ask Me 3 and Teach Back role playing, Leadership training for
New Readers to be leaders for health and literacy in their communities.
In Iowa we have put together a good team of people to put on a
conference like this and I want to thank all who have contribute to it.
Below is a statement by the New Readers of Iowa:
http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Policy_Statement_from_New_Readers_of_Iowa%2C_2007
