Q&A
Evolution of language access implementation and importance of dedicated staff
0:51:36
·
3 min
Kenneth Lo from MOIA discusses the evolution of language access implementation over time and emphasizes the importance of dedicated staff for effective language access programs.
- Initial focus was on basic infrastructure, such as contracts, protocols, and training
- Having dedicated language access coordinators or teams has proven essential for progress
- Agencies with better language access performance have embedded it into various aspects of their work
- MOIA aims to share best practices and raise expectations across agencies
Kenneth Lo
0:51:36
That could Yeah.
0:51:37
I I would say that over the course of administering or guiding agencies through local authority, you know, I'll say that the work that my colleague Dan was just speaking about on the last round of implementation plans.
0:51:55
It reflects 2 cycles of working with agencies on the previous plans where, like, former colleague and I we were focused on basic what we would call basic infrastructure, making sure that there was contracts in place of protocol for interrogating materials translated training.
0:52:19
Some of the things which aligned with the details of local authority and others that didn't.
0:52:26
Mhmm.
0:52:28
We found that over time, that having a dedicated leader on the language access front or language access individual whose primary role is language access?
0:52:45
As opposed to an additional requirement was essential.
0:52:50
In particular, if there was a team, we find that there's more capacity to move that work forward.
0:52:58
And especially in terms of working effectively with the contracted services.
0:53:05
One of the main is where we're trying to provide guidance and technical assistance in training 2 language access coordinators was around how to work more effectively with contracted vendors.
0:53:19
Because as mentioned in testing, that's one of there's certainly a critical way to provide the services.
0:53:28
So having a system in place, having appropriate relationship a professional and front customer vendor relationship is critical.
0:53:48
So some of those areas are the kind of the capacity building work that we're trying to is really helpful in improving our agencies deliver on that.
0:54:01
Now that's, again, that's that's just one arena where having a a team and having learn knowledge around how language access fits into specific arenas within agencies.
0:54:17
So not just the language access quarter recording everything, but also communications leads, outreach leads, contracting leads who can do the, you know, embedded language access into their work is is where winning to head, and the agencies that have done better on language access are those that have done that kind of place that kind of attention and resources into building out.
0:54:54
So some agencies that will be better than others.
0:54:58
We wanna make sure that we're sharing the best practices and sort of creating raising the level of expectation across agencies to deliver our language access.
