Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees - GCIR

With one out of five households in the United States speaking a language other than English at home, and more than 18.4 million foreign-born residents over the age of five speaking English less than very well, overcoming language barriers has become an increasingly vital element to emergency preparedness. Recent natural disasters-Hurricane Katrina, flooding in the Midwest, and the Southern California wildfires-illustrate the need for emergency response and public health systems to improve their outreach and services to immigrants, refugees, and other limited English proficient (LEP) residents who may be isolated, have little knowledge of emergency resources, and fear interacting with local public agencies. Published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and GCIR, this report offers a framework for how local governments can incorporate LEP residents into the emergency planning process, increase their preparedness, and develop capacity in key public agencies to communicate with and serve these residents.

The Lloyd A. Fry Foundation has funded a unique collaboration between the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) and the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law (Center) to develop a comprehensive plan for increasing LEP individuals' access to IDHS services. IDHS is the largest Illinois public agency, with over 15,000 employees and an annual budget of over $5 billion. Its seven divisions provide most of the state's safety-net and self-sufficiency services, including welfare, mental health programs, alcoholism and substance abuse treatment and prevention services, programs for people with developmental disabilities, health services for women and children, prevention services for domestic violence and at-risk youth, and rehabilitation services.

The Fry Foundation's $50,000 grant to the Center has allowed a team of experts to conduct a demographic analysis and assessment of IDHS's language capacities. IDHS has given the Center's staff and experts access to departmental documents and made senior staff available for interviews. The Center will make detailed recommendations, which IDHS © Jupiter Images will use to develop a new language access plan that is expected to serve as a model for other state agencies.

Both IDHS and the Center credit the Fry Foundation for encouraging a partnership between agencies that have not always seen eye-to-eye. As Unmi Song, executive director of the Fry Foundation, observes, "Developing a plan for increasing immigrants' access to health and social services requires that it be informed both by the needs of the community and government institutions... Because these parties were willing to collaborate, there was an opportunity to develop a process and plan that everyone could support." The Community Memorial Foundation and Michael Reese Health Trust have also provided support for this project.

Shortly after San Francisco became one of the first municipalities in the United States to adopt a local language access ordinance in 2001, the Zellerbach Family Foundation provided Chinese for Affirmative Action/Center for Asian American Advocacy (CAA) a multi-year grant to monitor implementation and provide technical assistance to government agencies which faced challenges in meeting the new mandates.

Over a four-year period, CAA developed a community coalition that worked with law enforcement, public housing, human services, public health, and renters' assistance agencies to improve their capacity to serve LEP populations. The coalition's advocacy led these agencies to add bilingual staff positions and develop formalized procedures and staff trainings. For instance, in response to two police shootings of LEP individuals in 2003 and 2004, the coalition convinced the San Francisco Police Department to develop a curriculum and video training to instruct officers on how to interact with persons with limited English skills. Under this program, all patrol officers are given a multilingual card that allows LEP persons to identify their native language. Officers are also required to use telephone interpretation services when no bilingual police staff is available.

According to Lina Avidan, program executive at the Zellerbach Family Foundation, "This project demonstrates that language access is essential for the timely integration of newcomers into local communities. Beyond the impact of its work with immigrants, CAA has helped elected and appointed officials recognize that the entire community benefits when all residents have access to essential services and understand their rights and responsibilities as community members." The Zellerbach Family Foundation has since expanded its funding to provide support for similar work in Oakland, California.

With support from The Minneapolis Foundation, the Southeast Asian Community Council (SACC) developed and distributed interpreter request cards to Hmong-speaking individuals who use the card when they come into contact with police officers. Each card lists the telephone numbers of an Englishspeaking family member, SACC, and interpreter telephone services, so that police officers have several options for finding interpreters to communicate in Hmong. Three local police departments in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metropolitan area and the state police agency have trained officers to respond to the usage of this card.

Creating a Formula for Success: Why English Language Learner Students Are Dropping Out of School, and How to Increase Graduation Rates

This report uses school data and student focus groups to assess why increasing numbers of English language learners (ELLs) in New York City dropped out of school after the state adopted higher graduation standards. Recommendations include: 1) targeting middle and high schools where 248 ELLS are underperforming; 2) implementing new strategies to reach students at high risk because they arrive in the United States as teenagers; 3) improving instruction in both ESL and core classes as well as increasing the number of teachers certified for ESL and bilingual instruction; 4) implementing a language access policy to enable immigrant parents to participate more actively in their children's education.

English is almost universally accepted by the children and grandchildren of the immigrants who have come to the US in great numbers since the 1960s, which means these children have high levels of linguistic assimilation. Moreover, by the third generation (grandchildren of immigrants), only a minority in any group maintains bilingualism.

This chapter from GCIR’s Investing in Our Communities: Strategies for Immigrant Integration explains the challenges of language access for immigrants and looks at the role that foundations can play.

This guide is intended to help healthcare organizations implement effective language access services (LAS) to meet the needs of their limited- English proficient (LEP) patients, thereby increasing their access to health care. LAS are especially relevant to racial and ethnic disparities in health care.

Reports on more than half of This report studies New York City’s Haitian, Russian, and Latino first-generation immigrants, and finds that language barriers lead to reduced quality of care for their children and prevents first-generation immigrants from fully using healthcare services. For a PDF of the report and to arrange interviews with the lead author or immigrant New Yorkers, contact Kathryn Cervino, Associate Communications Director, at 212.822.7285 or kcervino@nyam.org.