Rehabilitating before placing

The Community Services Division is ASCEND’s community effort to specifically address low literacy. Our vision is to establish programs that assist individuals in building skills and relationships that lead to better jobs, a better way of life, and a community of more self-confident, and self-improved citizens.

The Community Services Division rehabilitates individuals before placing them in their regular educational setting, ASCEND offer sessions that optimize a person’s ability to read or reduce their inability to read. To maintain confidentiality, instead of just placing new students or students with chronic absenteeism in a classroom, we encourage our partners to route all participants to ASCEND’s program to complete a weeklong rehabilitation course or session that prepares them for the educational setting. Before allowing participants to enroll in a GED program, encourage all students to complete a weeklong pre-literacy course. Diagnostics will be performed through the sponsoring organization.  

The Community Services Division service offerings include: Accelerated Pre literacy courses (session completed in one week), Pre-literacy (session completed in three weeks) Literacy workshops, and one-on-one sessions. We partner with other business organizations that offer networking, such a local chamber of commerce to allow business owners to practice their business pitch at networking events to refine their organizational content.

Currently, ASCEND Community Partners' Educational Rehabilitation Program is segmented into five components:

1. Education Rehabilitation for School-age Children

This program offers one on one and group sessions to children in economically disadvantaged and impoverished communities who may have had to miss school for a period of time (or may have lost focus in the classroom) due to personal situations beyond their control. Rather than directly incorporating them back into the classroom, the program offers an educational redevelopment program that rehabilitates the student's reading, writing, and spelling skills before allowing them to fully return to their classroom environment.

2. The Education Rehabilitation Program for young men 

This program is specifically designed for young men between the ages of 21 yrs to 35 yrs who may have passed through the educational system without developing a strong ability to read, write and spell. This program aims to become an accredited adult education program that leads to a GED or vocational certificate; and partners with educational institutions to help participants find, develop or improve their career path, upon completion of the rehabilitation program.

3. Educational Rehabilitation Program for African American young women 21 to 35 yrs

This program is specifically designed for young women between the ages of 21 yrs to 35 yrs who may have passed through the educational system without developing a strong ability to read, write and spell. This program aims to become an accredited adult education program that leads to a GED or vocational certificate; and partners with educational institutions to help participants find, develop or improve their career path, upon completion of the rehabilitation program.

4. Educational Rehabilitation for Seniors 

This program is designed for seniors between the ages of 62 and up who never learned to read or desire to improve their reading skills.

5. Educational Rehabilitation - Open Session

This program offers educational activities to individuals in a mixed age group. Students from school-age children to adults who simply want to sharpen their reading, writing, and spelling skills in an open but limited environment participate. Children are paired with adults and parents are paired with children to create a collaborative learning environment where everyone is helping and learning from each other.