BREAKOUT #4
LOCATION: CROSS TIMBERS 3
Wraparound services stabilize students – but is that enough? Discover the Foundation & Future model: a Student Success Ecosystem that connects literacy to employment, self-sufficiency, and lasting life outcomes.
About This Session
Description
What does it really take for a student to succeed?
Literacy skills are essential, but they are not enough on their own. A student who is hungry, housing-insecure, or without childcare cannot fully engage in learning. And a student who gains literacy skills but has no pathway to employment, economic stability, or self-sufficiency has not yet reached their full potential.
This session introduces the Foundation & Future model: a framework for building a Student Success Ecosystem through two rings of intentional community partnership. Foundation partnerships address the barriers that prevent students from showing up and engaging, including housing, food, childcare, transportation, mental health, and more. Future partnerships connect learning to life outcomes, employer relationships, workforce skills, career navigation, financial literacy, and the pathway to self-sufficiency.
Most literacy organizations have built some Foundation partnerships. Far fewer have built the Future ring. This session argues that both are essential and that the organizations willing to redefine wraparound services as a full ecosystem will make the greatest impact on their students and communities.
Drawing on the Literacy Coalition of Central Texas’s active experience with both Foundation and Future partnerships, including employer and workforce connections already embedded in their model, participants will leave with the tools, the framework, and the inspiration to build their own Student Success Ecosystem.
Literacy is a partnership. A full ecosystem takes students where they want to go.
What we'll cover:
The objectives of the session are organized around the Foundation & Future model. Participants will define wraparound services in both their traditional and expanded forms, and understand why a Student Success Ecosystem requires both rings. They will explore the difference between partnerships, collaborations, and coalitions, and identify which structures best support Foundation vs. Future goals. Attendees will assess their own organization’s current partnership landscape, identifying which ring is stronger and where the gaps are, and map community assets that can fill those gaps. The session will challenge participants to reconsider who counts as a partner: not just social service providers, but employers, workforce boards, financial institutions, and other Future-facing organizations. Finally, it will provide a practical framework for building, sustaining, and evaluating partnerships across both rings.
The target outcome is for participants to leave with their organization’s version of a completed Foundation & Future partnership map that identifies their current partnerships, their gaps, and their highest-priority next partnerships in both rings. They will identify 2–4 specific organizations to approach as new partners, with at least one Future-facing partner (employer, workforce entity, or equivalent). They will also leave with a shared language and framework to bring back to their teams: the Student Success Ecosystem as a way of thinking about what wraparound services can truly be.
During the session, participants will have time to discuss their programs and/or literacy services, ask questions, learn from other attendees, and potentially build a new partnership (or contact).
Topics & Focus
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Presenter
Lisa Stewart, MBA, CAE
Executive Director
Literacy Coalition of Central Texas
Lisa M. Stewart, MBA, CAE, is the Literacy Coalition of Central Texas’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Literacy Coalition provides adult basic education, high school equivalency certification, career readiness, job training, parenting, and school readiness services to adults and families in Central Texas. Stewart grew up in Pasadena, Texas, and moved to Central Texas in 2018 after focusing on higher education in Washington, DC.
Stewart’s role today elevates her passion for literacy and education by helping the Central Texas community grow, thrive, and achieve livable employment. Under her leadership, the organization transitioned to a community-based service model, increased funding from state, city, and foundation partners, and remodeled its curriculum to meet the challenges of today’s adult students. Most recently, she has led the development of a data-driven services model, launched an advocacy platform to advance adult literacy policy, and established Literacy Pulse, a thought-leadership article series that elevates issues and voices across the adult literacy field.
Before becoming CEO of the Literacy Coalition, Stewart served as Chief Financial Officer. In her career, Lisa M. Stewart earned recognition as a Non-Profit Finance Leader and was awarded CFO of the Year Rising Star for the Greater Washington, DC Area. She is also a first-time children’s book author with a debut title set for publication later this year.
Breakout26 – STEWART
Page checked or updated: 6/10/2026
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