The Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards, Hawai‘i's Language Access Law, and the Office of Language Access

摘要

Since the adoption of the CLAS standards as a policy by the Office of Minority Health, many states have tried to implement it either through the passage of language access laws or legislation requiring some form of cultural competency training for all or part of their workforce. Hawai‘i passed its comprehensive language access law in 2006 and unsuccessfully proposed legislation in 2013 which would have required multicultural health awareness and education training for nurse's aides. Hawai‘i's language access law not only requires all agencies receiving state funds (including county and nonprofit agencies) to establish and implement language access plans, but also established an office of language access (OLA) to provide oversight, central coordination, and technical assistance to state funded agencies in their implementation of the requirements of the law. In addition, OLA monitors state agencies for compliance, and resolves complaints on language access through informal methods. Since its establishment in 2007, OLA has undertaken various projects and activities that support CLAS—particularly standards 5–8 (communication and language assistance). It educates the public about language access, the Limited English Proficiency (LEP) population about their rights, and the agencies about their responsibilities. It has held annual conferences focusing on cultural and linguistic competency, held trainings and workshops for both agencies and language service providers, and passed legislation establishing a language access resource center and multilingual website. In addition, it has supported the Hawai‘i Language Roadmap Initiative, the establishment of a single state contract for translation services, and has proposed legislation for state certification of health care interpreters. The diversity of Hawai‘i's cultures and languages is a huge challenge, but OLA hopes to further promote and ensure cultural and linguistic competency in Hawai‘i the best it can.