At the Learning Centre and other programs in Edmonton and Camrose they have been developing various new initiatives. One project offering an intensive course integrating literacy and life skills involved the Edmonton John Howard Society and Elizabeth Fry Society. Judy Murphy and Bev Sochatsky described the dream (2) for this program as one which "saw women who had been in conflict with the law or were feeling vulnerable to being at risk being immersed in a program that could wrap around them in a supportive, positive way and provide a wholistic learning experience." (Murphy and Sochatsky, 2001). Mary Norton of the Learning Centre in Edmonton and Judy Murphy, the coordinator of Edmonton John Howard Society's Alternative Learning Program, now work together to offer joint programming for students in both programs drawing on the arts to support learning. Although these initiatives do not explicitly focus on violence, they are planned with a recognition that violence has been central in the lives of many learners and an interest in exploring how holistic education could be used to support learning for all.

Our focus groups in Edmonton were attended by staff of the Learning Centre, Edmonton John Howard Society, and the Write to Learn project in Camrose. During my earlier research study, Deborah Morgan, the creator of the Write to Learn project, invited me to spend a day with Chapters' students and staff, the literacy program she was running at the time. She knew that violence was an issue in the lives of learners in her program and had already written an article urging literacy programs to address the issue. Her current project builds on the focus on writing developed in the earlier program and encourages literacy workers to integrate writing into their literacy work.

(2) This project has led to a manual: Women's Journeys in Self Discovery: An Integrated literacy and Life Skills Approach to Learning, which provides detail of many of the activities used in the course, as well as an impression of the journey of the courses held in several different venues in prisons and in the community.