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Q&A
Language accessibility and diverse mechanisms for receiving complaints
0:47:32
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71 sec
The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) discusses the language accessibility of their complaint portal and the diverse mechanisms they use to receive complaints about immigration services fraud.
- The complaint portal can be translated into any language, ensuring language accessibility
- DCWP's outreach team includes staff members who speak eight languages other than English
- While the portal is accessible, DCWP acknowledges potential barriers such as technology access
- To overcome these barriers, DCWP uses diverse complaint reception methods including:
- The online portal
- 311 phone service
- In-person meetings
- Direct phone numbers and emails to staff members
Julie Menin
0:47:32
How many languages is a portal in?
Vilda Vera Mayuga
0:47:35
Is a portal in?
Julie Menin
0:47:37
Yeah, in other words I'm concerned about language access and I just want to understand that element of it.
Vilda Vera Mayuga
0:47:45
It can be in any language.
0:47:47
It can be translated into any of the languages for people to use it, So it's friendly in that that way.
Julie Menin
0:47:54
So there are no barriers you feel in terms of language access?
Vilda Vera Mayuga
0:47:57
No, absolutely not.
0:47:58
Even I mean in education we have eight people in our outreach team that speaks eight languages other than English for example also to counter that with our education.
0:48:05
But yeah, in terms of complaints coming in, don't I don't see a barrier for people to do it in a language where they're comfortable.
Carlos Ortiz
0:48:10
I wouldn't I wouldn't say though that there's no barrier, of course, to the portal.
0:48:14
I would I would you know, there's there's still tech issue.
0:48:16
I mean, people having to use technology, for example, which is why we wanna diversify the mechanisms of how we get complaints.
0:48:23
Whether that's the portal, of course, which has been driving more complaints to us naturally, but also three on one.
0:48:29
In person meetings, we are very accessible with direct phone numbers that lead to our staff and direct emails lead to our staff.
0:48:36
So I I think these are all techniques to make sure that we get the complaints in and and that we're addressing where people might have troubles with accessing government.