Family & Community Adult Education Family Literacy
Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium

Our vision is successful families. Our mission is successful partnershps.

Massachusetts Community Needs and Assets Profiles
(Enhanced and updated community profiles on our development site will replace these community profiles later this year.)

In order to demonstrate how important family literacy services can be for children and their parents, the Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium has developed individual profiles of community needs and assets for each of the 351 cities and towns in our state.

An estimated 877,000 Massachusetts adults do not possess functional literacy and another 1,162,000 are literate, but lack the skills expected of a high school graduate. These statistics, however, mask significant variations from community to community. The needs and assets profiles were created to document such differences using indicators of individual and family need, as well as assets communities have available to respond to these needs with respect to education, employment, poverty, social, and health characteristics.

The Community Needs Profiles provide a snapshot of education, family support, and general economic conditions using Census and state data. Data, including income, unemployment, dropout, poverty, and teen birth rates, is available for communities to use when holding forums, building coalitions, and advancing their efforts on behalf of integrated family literacy and family support services.

The companion Community Assets Profiles highlight selected resources related to family literacy and support including funding provided by agencies such as: the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Children's Trust Fund (CTF), the Department of Public Health (DPH), the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE), and the Office of Child Care Services (OCCS). They can help facilitate the identification of stakeholders invested in the well-being of families and the creation of opportunities for leveraging federal, state, and local resources.

When parents need literacy services for themselves, it is difficult for them to support their children's learning. Thousands of Massachusetts families led by undereducated and/or limited English proficient parents stand to benefit from an awareness of the value and benefit of family literacy programs and collaboration in support of family literacy. The MFLC provides these profiles to assist communities in helping family literacy grow and thrive. The well-being of our Commonwealth rests on our ability to create student, family, and community success -- together.

Data Sources for Community Needs Profiles
Data Sources/Contacts for Community Assets Profiles

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More information regarding PDF documents is found on this page

NOTE: The Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium used the latest data available to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) with cooperation and support of MFLC partners. In some cases, the information dates back to the 1990 Census. The ESE will update these profiles as information/data becomes available.