Second National Conference on
Quality Health Care for Culturally Diverse Populations:
Strategy and Action for Communities, Providers, and a Changing Health System

A: Challenges of translating written materials for large organizations

This 1-1/2 hour roundtable discussion will look at the challenges of translating large numbers of documents for many different language groups. Drawing on national and international expertise, invited participants will discuss model programs, translation methodologies, dissemination issues, and financing with each other and with audience members.

Ruth Coles is a graduate of the University of Toronto School of Social Work and has practiced in the health care field for many years. First as a clinical social worker, then as Director of Social work at Mt. St. Joseph Hospital and now as the Leader of Diversity Resources for Providence Health Care, Ruth's interest and work with clients from the ethnocultural community has been longstanding. Her first hand experience in working with various ethnocultural communities has highlighted for her many of the issues they face in accessing health services. She has worked on developing the Diversity Program at Providence Health Care as well as working on a number of collaborative projects/programs. These include: Health Care Interpreter's Project - developing standards for interpretation and a piloting a centralized service delivery system:

Multicultural Change in Health Services Delivery - a collaboration with 22 health agencies in implementing organizational change related to diversity.
Translated Health Education Materials Program - a collaborative project which developed standards for translation, developed and implemented a website program which is an ongoing program Ruth is a strong advocate for the health needs of the ethnocultural community and works with health/community organizations to keep the issues at the forefront of many agendas.

Ruth Coles
Director, Mt. St. Joseph Hospital
Multicultural Programs
3080 Prince Edward Street
Vancouver, BC V5T 3N4
Canada
Phone: (604) 877-8525
Fax: (604) 875-1277
Email: rcoles@providencehealth.bc.ca

Bonita H. Jacques, MSW is the Chief, Office of Administrative Resources, Management Services Administration for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). Ms. Jacques has administrative responsibility for the contracting and monitoring of both spoken interpretation and translation services for the entire department. She has policy development, fiscal tracking and contacts monitoring for the language certification of medical and social translators, medical and social interpreters and bilingual internal staff of the department.

Ms. Jacques has been with the department for 27 years. She has a masters' degree in Social Work Administration and Community Organization. She has held progressively responsible positions within DSHS in institutions, field positions and headquarters. She has worked in Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, Income assistance, Juvenile Justice, Medicaid expansion programs, Children's Services and department wide management services. Ms. Jacques coordinates all DSHS language services through her staff and staff throughout the department.

Bonita H. Jacques, MSW
Chief, Office of Administrative Resources
Washington State Department of Social and Health Resources
4500 10th Avenue, SE
Lacey, WA 98503
Phone: (360) 664-6011
Fax: (360) 664-6186

Ilona Lee is Manager of the NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service and has been since it was established in 1997 when she was appointed with the brief to find new, economical and efficient ways of ensuring that people who are not fluent in English receive information about health issues and health services.

Previously Ilona was Director of Health Promotion and Multicultural Health for South East Health for seven years and prior to this, she was a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Multicultural Centre, Sydney College of Advanced Education.

Ilona's interests have always been in the provision of services in multicultural Australia and she has written widely on the subject. She has produced training packages for government services including videos and simulation games. Although she has worked in the health system for ten years, she has also undertaken work for a number of Commonwealth, State and local government departments as well as non-government organizations.

Ilona Lee
Manager, New South Wales Multicultural Health Communication Service
Box 1614 GPO
Sydney 2001
Australia
Phone: +61 2 93827518
Fax: +61 2 93827517
Email: Leei@sesahs.nsw.GOV.AU

Aracely Rosales joined the Health Promotion Council in 1991 to direct the Latino Health Projects. Her primary responsibilities have been to develop, implement and oversee culturally specific bilingual programs that would increase communication between Latino/ Hispanic consumers and their providers, and to develop interventions that would enable consumers to prevent and manage chronic disease. To date, Ms. Rosales has been responsible for curriculum development, program implementation and staff supervision for the bilingual diabetes education program, "Controlando Nuestra Diabetes.” She has written and translated all of the Latino Project's Spanish materials and has extensive experience in materials design and curriculum development. Two of her guides were awarded funding from the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health to support national distribution. She has helped hundreds of professionals working with Latino community members around the Nation to learn needed skills to successfully reach their constituents with her presentations "Translating Across Cultures” and "Effective Diabetes Education for Latinos.” She has overseen the production, planning and has co-hosted call-in TV shows and a National diabetes radio program in Spanish on health related issues. She was also member of the first National Hispanic/ Latino Diabetes Expert Work Group for CDC, responsible for developing the Latino Recommendations for the Diabetes Latino Initiative.

Aracely Rosales
Program Director, Latino Health Literacy Project
Health Promotion Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Inc.
260 Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
Phone: (215) 731-6150

Julia Puebla Fortier has more than 10 years experience working in and writing about the health sector, and specializes in linguistic and cultural competence in health care and Federal health policy analysis. As founder and director of Resources for Cross Cultural Health Care, she manages a national alliance individuals and organizations in ethnic communities and health care organized to offer information and technical assistance on linguistic and cultural competence in health care. Activities include program design, policy development and analysis, research, and community advocacy. RCCHC is a co-producer of the second national conference, "Quality Health Care for Culturally Diverse Populations, to be held in October 2000. With the National Conference of State Legislatures, Ms. Fortier has developed and manages the DiversityRx website - a comprehensive clearinghouse of information on model programs, policies and legal issues related to cross cultural health - and its listserv of over 400 participants. She is currently principal investigator for an HHS Office of Minority Health-sponsored project to develop national model standards of cultural and linguistic competence and an accompanying research agenda.

Julia Puebla Fortier
Director, Resources for Cross Cultural Health Care
8915 Sudbury Road
Silver Spring, MD 20901
Phone: (301) 588-6051
Fax: (301) 585-4898
Email: rcchc@aol.com
http://www.DiversityRx.org

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