Curriculum III · Access and practice

Language Access as a Design

Who can use the door, the form, and the phone is already decided.

35–45 minutes · 4 lessons · Voluntary learning

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Course outline

Language access is not a favor
English-only is a who. Booking an interpreter is a design choice, not kindness.
7 minutes
Who this channel was built for
Language, hour, phone tree, and “bring your own cousin” are already a design.
6 minutes
Doors — and what is still yours
Title VI and EOAD if it is a complaint. The channel before anyone files is still yours.
6 minutes
One channel this month
Then the interpreter title, plain language, or the language-access plan walk.
6 minutes

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What you’ll be able to do

Explore and practice

Identify how language access as a design affects a DHS decision, service, or workplace process.
Use the course concepts and evidence to examine one live policy, form, meeting, service, hire, budget, or engagement plan.
Choose and document one defensible change, the person who owns it, and the date the team will review it.

What you can take into your work

Make and reconsider scenario decisions without being assigned a score.
Complete the practical activities and record a one-minute transfer commitment.
Apply the learning to a live work object in the Equity Analysis Toolkit.

Bring one live work object into the application workspace. Name who it was built for, who may carry the burden, and one change or formal escalation.

Listen to the introduction

Read the introduction

Language access is a design, not a favor. At the Minnesota Department of Human Services, who can use the door, the form, and the phone is already decided — in English, in one channel, at one hour. Title VI and Minnesota law are legal doors. CLAS is a standard. This course is the Tuesday: name who the channel was built for, then change it or write why it stays. Voluntary. No score.

Language Access Job Aid

A channel, not a favor. Title VI is a door. CLAS is a standard. Tuesday is still yours.

English-only is a who. A poster is not access.

Use this aid while applying Language Access as a Design to a live DHS work object.

English-only is a who. A poster is not access.
Use the relevant formal door when a right, complaint, labor process, safety duty, or Tribal consultation is involved.

Bring one live work object into the application workspace. Name who it was built for, who may carry the burden, and one change or formal escalation.

Notice

Who the form, phone, or lobby was built for.
Who never arrives.
DHS lists: five primary translations, ten on the language block, fifteen interpreter cards — a list is not the person.
Minors and untrained family as interpreters — CLAS says no.

Move

Book the interpreter; do not hope.
Tell people it exists — in their language.
Toolkit before the lock.
EOAD if it is already a complaint.

Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.

Sources and further reading

DOJ — Limited English Proficiency (recipient factsheet)
Title VI + Lau. Reasonable steps, meaningful access. Evidence, not the staff file.
HHS National CLAS Standards (enhanced 2013)
Language assistance at no cost; competence of interpreters; no minors; languages commonly used in the service area.
DHS — CLAS statewide plan and grants
2021 law. Language access is one of six action areas.
DHS — LEP resources (primary languages and nested lists)
Five primary: Hmong, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Vietnamese. Ten-language block. Fifteen interpreter cards.
Minnesota Statute 15.441
State public-contact language duty when a substantial number of people are non-English-speaking.
MDH — Working with Medical Interpreters (Refugee Health Provider Guide)
Minnesota public-health language duty named. Evidence.
DHS Equity Analysis Toolkit (this hub)
Use on a language channel before it locks.