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Q&A

Language access and translation services provided by CORE

1:54:17

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151 sec

Linda Tigani details CORE's approach to language access and translation services, highlighting their efforts to make information accessible to diverse communities and their plans for improving these services.

CORE provides translation services upon request, with at least 24 hours notice
All materials are translated if requested by the public
Executive summaries of longer documents are being translated
CORE newsletters are translated to keep the community updated
A new compliance officer role will oversee language access, among other responsibilities
CORE is exploring partnerships with community groups for more accurate translations
The organization ensures that online surveys can be responded to in the person's preferred language

Nantasha M. Williams

1:54:17

What sort of, I mean you kind of said it but what sort of language access or translation services if any do you provide at the community organizing events?

Linda Tigani

1:54:26

So we do provide translation for anyone who requests it.

1:54:30

I believe we ask for at least twenty four hours notice so that we can ensure that those services are provided.

1:54:37

We translate all of our materials if requested by the public.

1:54:42

What we are starting to do is also include executive summaries that are translated for some of our longer documents, like for example our testimony today.

1:54:51

And we translate our newsletters so that the community is able to see just sort of what are our updates for the month.

1:54:59

We are excited to say that OMB has approved a compliance officer line for CORE.

1:55:06

And part of that person's role, in addition to EEO and disability access, will also be language access.

1:55:13

And what we want to do is also begin to shift to get language translation support also from community groups.

1:55:21

What we learned is that there are differences sometimes depending on the language, on the translation we have, and how community members read it.

1:55:31

And so what we did in the first round was one, we learned about this discrepancy through our partnership with the Civic Engagement Commission.

1:55:39

We have started to sort of double check some of our translations with community members before making them public.

1:55:47

And then also identified the priority languages that the city sets out for translation and ensure that the online survey was able to be responded to in the person's preferred language.

1:56:01

We do then, we'll translate any open ended response that's written in a different language.

1:56:08

Sometimes we go back to the community organization and say, can you translate this for us?

1:56:13

Or we will work with the mayor's office of immigrant affairs to ask for their support so that anyone who is providing free response and their own personal thoughts that that is able to be fully integrated into our analysis.

Nantasha M. Williams

1:56:28

Thank you.

1:56:30

Because you had such robust testimony, most of the questions you answered and I always appreciate agencies who just answered the question.

1:56:45

It helps for us to understand the work that you all are doing.

1:56:48

I have two more questions and hopefully they don't get you in trouble, but during the last testimony, you know to me I feel like there's a lot of duplicity in the work and I feel like you know it's bureaucracy which I also hate but you know it's this idea of like and not to like be on my doge tip but like government is big sometimes for reasons that like don't make sense like why are we doing these things?

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CORE's online engagement and community input methods

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Potential duplication of work across racial equity initiatives