Developing a Language Access Plan

Developing a Language Access Plan

If your organization serves individuals with Limited English Proficiency (LEP), effective and timely communication is critical. Unfortunately, many organizations have learned this the hard way, relying on underqualified individuals to interpret or translate vital information. The result is usually frustration or underutilized resources, or both. While we always encourage organizations to work with trained linguists, and that is not changing, there is more to effective communication than this. Organizations servicing LEP populations require a Language Access Plan.

Language Access Plans are about more than identifying the appropriately trained linguist. Instead, this plan identifies ways providers of all types of services can assess their programs to ensure people with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) have meaningful access to what is offered in their communities and/or public and private organizations. It is about making sure staff feel comfortable and confident in executing this plan and ensuring the people you serve can communicate effectively with you. A Language Access Plan serves both your team and your clients or patients.

While we highly recommend choosing a trained and knowledgeable consultant to help you develop your Language Access Plan, we also want you to have the tools you need to get started. Therefore, we’ve compiled 13 ways to get started. You can download a free copy by filling out?the form below.

A General Guide for Organizations

One: Assessing the needs and understanding your community

Research the composition of your community members, including their preferred language and methods of communication. Collect data from multiple sources to analyze your community and determine communications strategies that best serve them.

Here are some things to consider when collecting your data:?

• Number of individuals with LEP
• Points of Contact with your organization
• Level or method of interaction—hotlines, information lines, outreach programs, public meetings, hearings, websites, applications, and written materials for public distribution (i.e., brochures) are common. Look at what your organization may have in addition to this list.?
• Stakeholder engagement—get feedback from community stakeholders and customer service satisfaction surveys. Be sure to mail any surveys in the communities’ preferred languages.

Two: Assess Relationships

Fragile relationships within the organization and top-down rollouts of language access procedures are two of the most common pitfalls when it comes to successfully developing and executing a language access plan. Assess relational challenges and areas of opportunity to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard when creating your plan.

When assessing relationships, consider your relationships within the community you serve. If necessary, establish new paths to relate to community leaders, organizers, churches, charity events, and other community outreach events to build bridges—and alliances—with non-English speaking community members. The most impactful and sustainable changes you will make to a language access strategy will be those based on community listening campaigns.

Community allies and partners can act as culture brokers, bridging the gap between persons of different cultural backgrounds as a critical approach to increasing access to and enhancing culturally competent service delivery.

Three: Train Your Staff

Here is a list of areas in which many organizations need additional training:

Necessary language access and other critical industry-related definitions

• The importance of providing language assistance services
• Cultural competence and cultural humility
• Unconscious Bias and how to counteract it
• How to effectively and respectfully communicate and interact with LEP individuals
• The organization’s policies and procedures related to providing language access services, including the availability of interpretation and translation services at no cost to the person served
• How can staff capture data around consumer language needs and preferred language
• Procedures to request and work with an interpreter
• What type of translated information is available to users of your services, and where can it be found

Don’t forget many of these training sessions are the most impactful at the time of hire, so consider adding them to your new hire onboarding.

Four: Identify the language access services that your organization will provide

It is vital to not only list but also describe the services the organization will provide. Examples include:?

• Interpretation: OPI, VRI, OSI-Consecutive, simultaneous, sight translation
• Sign Language, Braille, etc
• Translation: application, benefits, consent, complaint, eligibility, and survey forms
• Financial payment policies
• Availability of language access services notice, patient rights, and responsibilities, intake forms
• Instruction forms

Five: Assess Capacity

All organizations are made up of human beings. And humans have an ever-varying capacity to care for others. Which means your organization has an ever-varying capacity to serve others. Assessing your organization’s current capacity should be part of your Language Access Plan, but should not remain static. You will want to review your capacity at regular intervals. Look at capacity from these angles:

• Overall organizational capacity
• The political environment
• Capacity by department
• On an individual employee level (when possible). Who’s willing? Who’s being forced? Who’s disengaged?
• Your own capacity as head of the project or director of the organization

Six: Identify a language access working group

Ensure you create a group that includes leadership, managerial staff, and front-line members. You want this to be a group of people. Additionally, assign one supervisor who can accomplish the following in their day-to-day work:

• Overseeing the organization’s language access plan
• Maintaining a database of qualified interpreters and translators
• Coordinating staff training on how to utilize language assistance services when serving customers
• Coordinating and managing requests for interpretation and translations
• Managing a budget to provide language access services
• Regularly assessing and improving the language assistance program

One of the main tasks for this specific group as a whole should be community relationship building. Identify key LEP community stakeholders and reach them by finding the people with influence who are considered trusted advisors: spiritual leaders, store owners, respected elders, etc. Make sure they know about the services available to them in their preferred language and build trust with these people. Find the spots these communities do the majority of their shopping and put up printed information in the appropriate languages.

Seven: Identify your Resources

• Determine your budget
• Search for other resources (you may partner with an ONG or another agency and have them pick up the tab for some language access services!)
• Identify your current and potential allies
• List what you can and cannot do
• Outreach and build relationships with those who are interested in partnering with you

Organizations might also consider community relationships as a resource: build alliances with stakeholders from LEP communities and have them share their concerns, questions, and suggestions.

Eight: Recognize challenges

Start by identifying your top three challenges. Look at and analyze potential obstacles, then choose and start with what you can do NOW. Actively work on getting “buy-in” from leadership, managers, and frontline staff, then work on forging relationships with all team members to establish a collaborative and participatory approach.

Nine: Prioritize Tools

Identify tools you will need and use to achieve your goals, such as?Plain English, translation of vital information, captioning, a language access consultant, etc. Select effective and efficient tools that will have a positive and sustainable impact in the communities you serve.?

Lastly, utilize these tools to increase your allies —not everything has to be done alone or solely by your organization.

Ten: Notification of the Availability of Language Assistance Services

Don’t leave this to chance. Have a plan for the various means an LEP individual may contact you: online, over the phone, and in person. Make sure the Point to your Language Card, or?I SPEAK card, is available and have translated user accessibility notices and translated taglines on your website.

Eleven: Consider requirements

There are many angles from which to look at the term “requirements.” Consider the following:

• Utilize legal requirements to support your program
• Determine the political environment that would support your program and assess the current political climate for potential roadblocks
• Incorporate legal and other requirements in your plan
• Consider language access as a part of systemic change rather than just an obligation
• Frame your language access approach on access to linguistic rights to achieve a longer-reaching and more other-focused approach

Twelve: Keep monitoring, evaluating, and updating

• Monitor the organization’s responses to complaints or suggestions by individuals with limited English proficiency and community members. Know how your employees feel about the language assistance services provided and how comfortable they are offering them.?
• Keep current on community demographics and needs by engaging local public health authorities, school districts, faith communities, refugee resettlement agencies, and other local resources.?
• Survey staff members about their use of language assistance services, suggestions for improvement, and if the services provided meet the language needs of the local communities.
• Monitor utilization rates of the different types of language access services used throughout the organization.
• Conduct in-language surveys of the organization’s consumers about their experiences using its services, including language assistance services.?
• Collaborate with other agencies, using emerging technology, staff development, and other mechanisms to ensure improved access for individuals with limited English proficiency.

The overarching goal of this step is to establish a feedback loop that allows for community outreach at all stages of your language access plan. Doing so will enable you to make changes as necessary and direct your energy to the most effective strategies.

Thirteen: Responsive language benchmarking

Develop a system for tracking changes in the population you serve to be able to anticipate emerging LEP needs, and adjust your language services accordingly. In the data collection process, include sources from community-based organizations serving LEP and marginalized communities, as well as Census Bureau data.

Conclusion

There are a lot of angles from which to approach a language access plan. Remember, there is no one right place to start, and we created this list to provide you with several jumping-off points.

If you can afford to work with a qualified consultant, you will likely find it easier to go about your plan from multiple angles and still prevent overwhelm in staff – and yourself! That being said, not all organizations have the financial resources to do so, and this list aims to serve those organizations as they get started.