TLC Training Specialist Richard Ponce de Leon recently presented information about language access in health care to the Medical Group Managers Association in Clarksville. The event was attended by medical practice administrators with the goal of improving service to their limited English proficiency patients.
TLC has taken a leadership role in the newly launched Cultural Ambassadors for Disaster Communication (CADC) program. Together with the Nashville Mayor’s Office and Office of Emergency Management (OEM), TLC is co-leading the program that aims to improve communications during disasters with the immigrant and limited English proficiency communities with the ultimate goal of saving lives.
During previous disaster in the Nashville area like flooding and tornadoes, it was often hard to reach these communities before, during, and after with emergency information. The goal of the CADC is to have “ambassadors” within those communities that are already in trusted or leadership positions. OEM and TLC will provide special training to these ambassadors. The program launched this Fall and will continue the ambassador training through the rest of 2022 and into 2023. TLC Training Specialist Richard Ponce de Leon is representing TLC in the program.
TLC Training Specialist Richard Ponce de Leon, TLC Interpreter and MITC Instructor Nadia Crank, and TLC Interpreter Dennis Caffey recently participated in an educational panel for 20 candidates for a doctorate in nursing from Belmont University. They were joined by Dr. Elizabeth Morse, professor of nursing; Erick Hernandez Campos, nurse practitioner and student of the Doctorate in Nursing at Belmont; and Lauren Smith, family nurse practitioner at Siloam. The panel, which was sponsored and held at Siloam Health in Nashville, focused on language access, the use of interpreters, and culture-informed healthcare. Siloam Health provides health care for the uninsured, underserved, and culturally marginalized in Middle Tennessee.
Erika Burnett, Diversity, Inclusion, and Intercultural Communication Instructor, represented the Tennessee Language Center at the Metro Nashville Office of Family Safety remote and in-person panel about meaningful language access for trauma survivors. The panel addressed staff and partners of Nashville’s Family Safety Center as well as Tennessee’s statewide family justice centers and their partners (victim advocates, legal aid, prosecutors, medical and mental health professionals, law enforcement, crisis response staff, etc.) Topics addressed included how to prepare a trauma survivor to work with interpreters as well as how to prepare interpreters to work with trauma survivors, what language access plans are and how to begin developing one, and cultural sensitivity.