Curriculum III · Access and practice
Plain Language in Human Services
A form only a lawyer can finish is a closed gate.
30–40 minutes · 4 lessons · Voluntary learning
Course outline
- 6 minutes
The sentence is a gate
If they cannot act on the letter, the process already chose.
- 7 minutes
How to write so someone can act
One idea. The word they use. The action first.
- 5 minutes
What this is not
Not translation. Not dumbing down. Not a pass on ASL or captions.
- 5 minutes
Rewrite one page
Then the language-access plan if the channel is bigger than a letter.
Share this course
What you’ll be able to do
Explore and practice
- Identify how plain language in human services 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
Plain language is access. A form that only a lawyer can finish is a closed gate. This course is how Minnesota DHS employees write so a person can act — short sentences, one idea, the real word for the thing. It is not dumbing down. It is not a substitute for an interpreter. Voluntary. No score.
Plain Language Job Aid
Action first. One idea. The real word. Not a substitute for an interpreter.
A form only a lawyer can finish is a closed gate.
Use this aid while applying Plain Language in Human Services to a live DHS work object.
- A form only a lawyer can finish is a closed gate.
- 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.
Write
- Action and date first.
- One idea per sentence.
- Read it out loud.
Still
- Translate vital documents.
- Book the interpreter.
- Captions and ASL are not “plain English.”
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
- Center for Health Care Strategies — Health Literacy / plain language
Health-literacy evidence. Not the staff file.
- HHS CLAS Standard 8
Easy-to-understand materials in the languages people use.
- Working with an interpreter (this hub)
Plain English does not replace this room.