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The Third National
Conference on |
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October
2 - 4, 2002, Chicago, IL |
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Preconference | Wed., October 2nd | Th., October 3rd | Fr., October 4th | | ||||||||||
Workshop E: Legal overview and advocacy strategies for assuring linguistic and cultural access to health careThe first part of the session will provide an overview of various federal, state and local tools, as well as provide some examples of best practices/models, which advocates can use to ensure that health care services meet the needs of culturally diverse populations. The second part of the session will involve breaking into three smaller participatory groups:
Ms. Wong is a staff attorney at the National Health Law Program ("NHeLP"), which is a national, non-profit law firm working to increase and improve access to quality health care on behalf of limited-income individuals by providing legal analysis and representation, information, education, and policy advocacy. She places a special focus on the needs of immigrants and limited-English- proficient populations for culturally and linguistically appropriate health care services, has participated on the National Advisory Committee for the Development of Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health Care, and currently serves on the California Department of Consumer Affairs and Department of Health Services’ Task Force on Culturally and Linguistically Competent Physicians and Dentists and the Policy and Research Committee of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care. Before coming to NHeLP, she worked in the area of civil rights for a number of public interest organizations including the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, the ACLU of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C., and a Los Angeles-based civil rights firm specializing in enforcement of consent decrees in race discrimination cases. Ms. Wong graduated from New York University School of Law in 1987 after working for nine years as a health care professional.
Heng Lam Foong received her B.A in Communication Arts in New York. She currently serves as Program Director of PALS for Health a private, non-profit program that provides medical interpretation, interpreter training, in-language consumer health education, and language rights advocacy. Ms. Foong also offers cultural trainings to health care providers and has presented locally and nationally. She is a vocal supporter of linguistically appropriate access to health care for limited-English proficient (LEP) health consumers and is a member of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services’ Cultural and Linguistic Task Force charged with creating a countywide guideline for health care providers in the delivery of culturally and linguistically appropriate health care services. Besides advocating for linguistically appropriate health care, Ms. Foong also actively supports access to diverse health areas and has participated in various committees including Coalition Against Tuberculosis Los Angeles County, API Task Force on HIV/AIDS, Northeast Cluster Diversity Council, Partnered for Progress - API Task Force, and is also a member of the API Advisory Council to the Outreach/Public Education Subcommittee of Breast and Cervical Advisory Council, California Department of Health Services. Karin Wang is the Deputy Regional Manager in the Region IX Office for Civil Rights (OCR), in the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). As the Deputy Regional Manager, Ms. Wang oversees the Los Angeles field office but assists in administering civil rights enforcement for a region that includes California, Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada, and the Pacific territories. Prior to joining OCR in December 2000, Ms. Wang was a Staff Attorney at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) in Los Angeles, where she directed APALC=s Immigrant Welfare Project. At APALC, her work involved state and local policy advocacy on immigrant welfare and health issues, including benefits eligibility and immigration and language barriers to access. She also served as Co-Chair of the Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council Health Committee and as a member of several Los Angeles County and California task forces working to improve access to health and social services for immigrants and refugees. Ms. Wang is a 1995 graduate of UC-Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, where she served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Law Journal, which focused on legal and policy issues affecting Asian American communities. As a law student, she externed for the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, working on voting rights and hate crimes issues. Following graduation, Ms. Wang practiced with the law firm of Morrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco. Ms. Wang received her B.S. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Susan Kim is a Project Coordinator at the Asian Health Coalition of Illinois (AHCI) where she directs the Opening Doors Cultural Competence Training Program. The goal of the program is to instill heath care providers with the knowledge and skills to provide quality care to multicultural clients. Susan has extensive experience designing, teaching, leading, and evaluating the Opening Doors cultural competence training curriculum. Prior to joining AHCI, she was a Program Officer at the New York Academy of Medicine. Her work at the Academy focused on the development of structures and procedures to enhance broad-based community participation and decision making in the work of public health. She also served as an Americorp VISTA community organizer on the Healthy Neighborhoods Project in Fort Worth, TX. Susan received a Masters in Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis.
Lisa M. Simeone is Regional Manager in the Region V Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the US Department of Health and Human Services. OCR is responsible for enforcing a variety of federal civil rights laws in health and social service programs receiving federal funds, e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, social service block grants, mental health funds and welfare funds, among others. Prior to joining OCR, Lisa served as Director of Programs of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, where she oversaw the Coalition’s programs, including Immigration and Citizenship, Policy and Advocacy, Immigrant Welfare Implementation, and Suburban Organizing. Her work included monitoring the impact of welfare and immigration laws on immigrant communities in Illinois, and sharing information with these communities through comprehensive training, bilingual workshops and written materials. Lisa has also worked in the fields of domestic violence and adult education, and has taught English as a Second Language in Mexico and Chicago’s Mexican-American community.
Carol Pryor, MPH, is a policy analyst at The Access Project, Brandeis University. The Access Project works to strengthen the voice of community members in the shaping of health care policies that affect them. In partnership with community organizations and academic researchers, Ms. Pryor has developed many reports presenting local data on the health of vulnerable populations, which community groups have used to advocate for improved access to health care for the uninsured and others.
Mara Youdelman has worked at the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) since August 2000 on issues including Medicaid, racial and ethnic disparities, reproductive health and immigrants’ issues. Mara recently completed work on a joint report with the Summit Health Institute for Research and Education, funded by The Commonwealth Fund, entitled Racial, Ethnic and Primary Language Data Collection in the Health Care System: An Assessment of Federal Policies and Practices. Mara also works on issues of cultural competency and language access, recently co-authoring a Field Report from The Commonwealth Fund on language interpretation in healthcare settings. Prior to joining NHeLP, Mara completed a teaching fellowship at Georgetown University Law Center’s Federal Legislation Clinic and two years litigating for the Administration for Children’s Services in New York City on child abuse and neglect cases. Mara earned her JD from Boston University School of Law and her LLM in Advocacy from Georgetown University Law Center.
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| As with the rest of Diversity Rx, this section
is a work in progress and we welcome information on other efforts, programs,
and reports that will expand upon the information offered here. Please
let us know if you have other examples to include here. |
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essentials | models and practices | policy | legal issues
| networking | table
of contents | contact us
| who we are |
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Diversity Rx is sponsored by: |
 The National Conference of State Legislatures |
 Resources for Cross Cultural Health Care |
 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation |
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