ALA Annual 2011: Serving Teens with Disabilities
By SLJ Staff June 25, 2011Working with disabled teens isn't easy, but you can learn how to adapt programs, build relationships, and partner with caregivers and teachers to provide the best possible service for this group, said a panel of librarians Saturday during the "Serving Teens with Disabilities" session at the American Library Association's annual conference in New Orleans.
Michele Gorman, the teen services coordinator at North Carolina's Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, had unveiled a three-year strategic plan in 2009, with one of the six major goals being accessible services and collections-and specifically expanding "services and technologies for residents with disabilities." But with massive budget cuts and layoffs in 2010-2011, the library's YA staff couldn't do much to reach its goal.
Despite the financial setbacks, the library has tried to develop unique and developmentally appropriate programs and events for teens with disabilities, and to provide its staff with professional development opportunities. It's also managed to create programs and events to educate the local community about young people with disabilities by creating partnerships with local youth-serving organizations and educational institutions. Gorman emphasized that it's "more important to do something, even if you get things wrong, than to do nothing at all."
Vikki C. Terrile, the coordinator of young adult services at New York's Queens Library, spoke about her outreach and in-library programs with a group home for teen boys who have severe emotional disturbances. For the past year, Terrile has helped facilitate a weekly in-library program for boys from the facility with activities ranging from poetry, T-shirt decorating, martial arts, and science experiments.
This year, she added a weekly short story discussion program held at the group home as part of People and Stories' NEH Story Talk grant for libraries working with teens. Using the People and Stories framework, she's had many meaningful discussions with the boys-who have a wide range of cognitive abilities-on the literary short stories selected for the grant project. Queens Library serves over 2.3 million people in the most diverse county in the United States through 62 branch libraries and a central library.
Meg Kolaya, director of New Jersey's Scotch Plains Public Library, and Dan Weiss, director of the neighboring Fanwood Memorial Library have had great success with the collaborative shared-services approach they've championed since 2005.
One outcome of this partnership is the award-winning "Libraries and Autism: We're Connected," a customer service training video and website primarily to help their library staff to more effectively serve autistic kids of all ages and their families.
The video and website focuses on what librarians need to know about autism and empowers them to offer more inclusive and universal service to this growing and underserved group.
With the population of those with autism spectrum disorders aging, Kolaya and Weiss have turned to strategies and programs aimed at teens and transitional young adults, with a focus on customer service, the importance of empowering staffers to be willing to 'do something', for example, using autistic individuals or those with other developmental disabilities as volunteers in the library, developing programming strategies that work, and connecting with local experts.
See our ALA Conferences site for complete event coverage from the editors of Library Journal and School Library Journal.
