Main Room Notes

Language Access Work Group

Notes from 

Meeting 4 Main Room

September 5, 2023

SUMMARY OF MEETING 4

Welcome and agenda review

Anita Maguire

Call attention to community agreements

Anita Maguire

Consolidated highlights from the last meeting’s breakout room discussions 

Anita Maguire

Breakout room discussions

Breakout Room Facilitators and Participants 

Breakout room discussion recap

Breakout Room Facilitators

Conclusion and next steps

Anita Maguire

 

Meeting 4 Participants

Gabrielle Bachmeier Lynora Hirata Theresa Powell
Tara Bostock Carrie Huie-Pascua Jennifer Price
Vicky Chan Agata Ianturina Joana Ramos
Faye Chien Jarrod Irvin Cindy Roat
Nadia Damchii Cristina Labra Elsie Rodriguez Pas
Rep. Carolyn Eslick Eliana Lobo Zenaida Rojas
Zugey Garcia Ruiqin Miao, PhD María Sigüenza
Jon Gould Leroy Mould Yvonne Simpson
Luisa Gracia Natalya Mytareva Cathy Vue
Tony Griego Gustavo Negrete Yun-Mei Wang Wilborn
Aranza Granrose Hugo Nuñez Sandy Yang
Tony Griego Casey Peplow  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meeting 4 DSHS Support Staff

Sharon Armstrong, Breakout Room Facilitator
Herminia Esqueda, Breakout Room Facilitator
Scott Hubbell, Breakout Room Facilitator
Benjamin Lee, Zoom Host
Anita Maguire, Main Room Facilitator
Tony Rice, Breakout Room Facilitator
Norah West, Breakout Room Facilitator
Malia Wallace-Mello, Project Manager

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WELCOME AND AGENDA REVIEW

The Main Room Facilitator introduced herself and the Zoom Host. She then gave a quick recap of the agenda.

 

COMMUNITY AGREEMENTS

The Main Room Facilitator held space for self-review of the Community Agreements established during the first meeting:

  • Respect each other in action and speech.

  • Stay present.

  • Listen with an open mind.

  • Arrive prepared and ready to engage.

  • Consider your thoughts before speaking.

  • Honesty in all communication.

  • Contribute from your lived experience.

  • Clarify to avoid assumptions.

  • Plain speak as much as possible.

  • Avoid acronyms and complications.

  • Ask questions out of curiosity.

  • Use specific, and whenever possible, brief examples for clarity.

  • Be open to different cultural and linguistic modes of expression.

  • Respectful disagreement is ok.

 

Participants were thanked for accepting these agreements and holding themselves accountable to them as the group works together to develop understanding and propose recommendations.

 

CONSOLIDATED LIST OF WHAT WAS SHARED DURING MEETING THREE 

The Main Room Facilitator reviewed a consolidated list of what participants said in breakout rooms during the last session:

 

  • Standardize quality interpretive services through the certification process

  • Prioritize universal testing that is high quality and accessible

  • Ensure technology is compliant with Washington State accessibility laws and policies

  • Meet LEP clients wherever they need service

  • Set standards for convenient and comprehensive technical test access in languages other than English

  • Accessibility for testers and interpreters with disabilities where ADA accommodations do not meet their needs

  • Expertise in languages with lesser demand

  • Integrated support systems for in-person and remote translators and interpreters

  • Monitor third-party testing and certification entities if testing is external to DSHS

  • Prometric came up prominently as an example of a proctoring system that is currently available and can contract with DSHS to offer community-based options

  • Use Washington Labor and Industries (LNI) reports to target certain language needs for better recruitment

  • Connect training programs to medical education

  • Examine best practices and successful programs in the U.S., such as at Massachusetts and Walla Walla Community College

  • Prerequisites to uphold the validity of accredited testing

  • Security of proctoring platforms to allow DSHS to focus on identifying candidates

  • Partner with CCHI, NBCMI, community colleges and others in the U.S. that meet criteria of needs

  • Build an articulation agreement with community colleges

  • Contract with community colleges for space and tech support, as well as acquiring proctors

  • Money is a limitation for DSHS to build an accredited test, whereas other entities have established tests

 

All participant comments will be considered as we develop the final recommendation. Participants were thanked for offering up their lived experience and expertise.

If participants would like to see a less consolidated version of the discussions, they are encouraged to check out the breakout room notes on the Meeting 3 of 6 page of the SSB 5304 Language Access Work Group website.

 

BREAKOUT ROOMS

Participants moved into breakout rooms to discuss what they would like to see in a draft recommendation, or what they have already shared in a draft recommendation, regarding components of the Preliminary Elements of Medical Interpreter Testing and Certification information sheet: prerequisites and screening, test content, and test quality.

For more information about the breakout room discussions, please see the notes from each of the five breakout rooms on the Meeting 4 of 6 page of the SSB 5304 Language Access Work Group site.

 

CONCLUSION AND NEXT STEPS

In preparation for the September 19 meeting, participants were asked to make recommendations necessary to support language access and interpretive services that include:

  • Strategies for increasing access to language access providers in rural communities and for languages of lesser demand,

  • Strategies for workforce resiliency including adequate workload and compensation, and

  • Standards of ethics and professional responsibility.

The above homework reflects the mandate in SSB 5304 Sec. 3, (2)(b)-(d). Please submit your recommendations via email to workgroupssb5304@dshs.wa.gov.

Participants were encouraged to contact the work group project manager, Malia Wallace-Mello, if they have any questions.

Everyone was thanked.