Hi Reader,

As World Speaks continues to evolve our newsletter, we want to know what you want to hear about! We’ve assembled two questions to help us learn a bit more about you, and what you want to know about language access. Answering these questions will help us show you how to expand language access in our community!

Access in Action

In our newest newsletter feature, learn how Language Access works in action – in our communities, our business, and our lives.

Take a moment, and imagine you’re going to the doctor, but you don’t speak the local language.

How can you explain what’s happening to you?
How do you ask the questions that you need to know about treatment options, medication, or procedures?
Most importantly, how do you make sure you get the best care possible?
​
For many people who do not speak English as their first language while living in America, this is an everyday challenge.

The solution? That’s where interpreters come in! In a clinical setting, interpreters help patients and clinicians understand one another, and they play a vital part in ensuring that everyone gets the best care possible.

When the Health Center Association of Nebraska (HCAN) wanted to make sure their providers could work with interpreters successfully in a clinical setting, they called World Speaks!

We helped them create a video to train their providers to work with interpreters successfully in a clinical setting. We developed a script that is informative, easy to understand and – most importantly – designed to build trust and confidence within the clinician to patient relationship. The result is a training tool that can be used to train the community health center workforce for years to come.

Thanks so much to HCAN and our friends at Stable Gray for a great video shoot!

World Speaks Presenting at NATI Conference

There's less than a month until World Speaks presents at the Nebraska Association for Translators and Interpreters (NATI) Conference!
​
This event brings together interpreters, translators, educators, healthcare providers, legal professionals, and advocates from all over Nebraska to learn, earn CEUs (Continuing Education Credits), network, and empower the language access field.
​
World Speaks will be presenting “Language access in our community - The work of World Speaks” and we are excited to contribute to the ongoing conversation and education for the incredible Translators and Interpreters who live and work in Nebraska.

World Speaks takes a RESET

The World Speaks team has been taking part in the RESET program with David Leguillow from Omaha Integrative Care, thanks to support from the Weitz Family Foundation. RESET is designed to help nonprofit staff manage stress, build well-being, and create self-care habits that last. As a small but mighty nonprofit team, it is so helpful to take a step back and focus on us!

In our first two sessions, we explored the eight dimensions of wellness. Most recently, we dug into four of them more deeply — Occupational, Environmental, Financial, and Intellectual. Together, we talked about what wellness looks like across all eight dimensions and shared practices that can help us stay grounded in each area.

We’re so thankful to the Weitz Family Foundation for funding, and we can’t wait to continue our work with David and Omaha Integrative Care!

Language Access Learning

As we shared earlier in the newsletter, Language Access in a medical setting is vital to contributing to better patient care. But what are some of the potential drawbacks of not having language access in a healthcare setting? Let’s look at some findings from a 2020 systematic review in the Oman Medical Journal that looked at implications of language barriers in a medical setting:

• Among patients who received treatment when there is a language barrier - 30% had difficulty understanding medical instructions and 30% had a problem with the reliability of information.
• In addition, when language access is an issue, 34.7% of patients were confused about how to use medication, 41.8% had trouble understanding a label on medication, 15.8% had a bad reaction to medication due to a problem understanding their healthcare provider’s instructions.
• Patients with limited local language proficiency are also likely to miss medical appointments and have difficulties arranging appointments due to the language barrier.

All these reasons (and so many more – visit the article for more information) show how important it is to have language access in healthcare settings across our community!

GET INVOLVED

UPCOMING EVENTS

• August 29 – Fall Class Registration Opens
• September 5&6 – NATI Conference

​

7914 W Dodge Rd #475

Omaha NE 68114

(Mailing address)

​​​

​Unsubscribe · Preferences​