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.
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.
Richard Ponce de Leon from TLC participated in the panel discussion “Workforce Inclusion Impacting Workplace Safety” at the 2021 Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Educational Conference held Nov. 2 in Murfreesboro. Richard addressed how language barriers can impact workplace safety. Attendees included TN employers, insurance adjusters, self-insurers, third party administrators, safety and human resource managers, plaintiff and defense attorneys, health care providers, mediators, nurse case managers, and medical and vocational rehabilitation providers.
TLC is dedicate to facilitating intercultural communication, and as workforce demographics evolve, overcoming language barriers reduces liability risks associated with workplace injury and death.
Jenny Rish, Director of English Programs, and Irma Hernandez, Spanish Bilingual Admin Coordinator, held an interactive presentation for the Tennessee Association of Municipal Clerks and Recorders (TAMCAR) on Thursday, June 3, about “The Basics for Communicating with All of Your Residents.” TAMCAR is a professional organization dedicated to the advancement of the municipal clerk and encourages clerks and recorders to continue their professional growth and development through continuing educational opportunities. TLC helped participants think through interactions they have had with people from other cultures who speak other languages and provided some basic phrases in Spanish to help with their work.
Some translation mistakes can have a lasting, if mostly harmless, impact. Like early Biblical translators thinking Moses was “horned” instead of “radiant,” leading to some really interesting sculptures, statues, and illuminations of Moses with horns on his head. Or people thinking that Mars had manmade “canals” on it instead of erosion-created “channels” due to a translation error. But other translation mistakes can have lifelong, or even deadly, consequences, as Richard Ponce-de-Leon Monosalva, Interpretation & Translation Project Manager, illustrated during his presentation “Language Access in the Courts” at a recent MTAS Conference for Municipal Court Clerks from across Tennessee on May 21.
TLC provides certified court interpreters, and also offers training for court interpretation throughout the year.