 Thank you. So this is Senate government operations. It is Wednesday, February 3rd, and we are going to hear today S147, which is a bill about language access plans. And what I'm going to do is because most of you don't join our committee very often, so I'm going to have us introduce ourselves, and then I'll tell you how the process works, if that's okay. So I'm Jeanette White, and I am from Wyndham County. Hi all, I'm Anthony Polina, Washington County. Brian Collamore representing the Rutland County District. Allison Clarkson representing the Windsor District. Aisha Rom-Hinstel, Chittin County, and Mel from Linda, who's present with us, who has to leave at 2. Yes, yes, Dale did tell me that. So the way the way this works is that we will take your testimony, and if people have any questions, we will ask you questions. And Linda, I do understand that you have a time constraint, and so we're going to start with you. So tell us what you have to tell us and welcome. Thank you so much everyone for honoring my time limitation. So let me tell you a little bit about myself and why I think my voice is worth to be here. So I'm an immigrant, and I'm also an interpreter for a very, very long time. I become an interpreter since 2004, and since then I've been very involved in the community, and I become a social worker. I went back to social work school in 2008, and now I am fast forward. I am a child therapist at the Community Health Center of Burlington, and also the president, chapter president for the National Association of Social Worker and interpreter. And that's exactly why I'm here, because interpreter has long been kind of off. We don't really have a career path right now. We don't have a lot of focus on us in terms of training and the importance, and so to speak. There's not a lot of providers know how to work with an interpreter. We see I have many different kind of experience in medical setting, legal setting or court setting, a very, very level of understanding about interpreters. And I think this law is important because it put focus on if the state are used to interpreter as a standard and focusing on this is professional, this is a profession, this is a career, and we could be able to create a better, way better retention for people of color or people who speak different language to state. And I can also tell you how important it is to use an interpreter, right? I think go back to the basic education of people don't even know how to request an interpreter, because either we don't require it, either we don't, you know, we don't think that's necessary. And this is all about social justice, racial justice. I have heard DCF court hearing has not, clearly has not have been used in interpreters. That's very troubling, and luckily I have friends in connection there. So I've been working with the DCF educator there and do some training with them. But again, I feel like this is not just a law to just put it as a paper. I think it would trigger, I hope that would trigger along the term of system for interpreters, standards for interpreter, and more so, insurance to pay for interpreter services. Medicaid reimburse, fair, like a better, like a affordable way for small, for small practices or organization or individual doctor solvers to use interpreters. So I think that I didn't come totally prepare a statement, but I'm talking from my raw and firsthand experience and being both in the provider side and the interpreter side and also person who on the receiver side I should say, on the receiver side and the providing side. So I would appreciate that this could pass through. Any questions for me? I'm sorry, I probably, yes, I do have a question and then I'll open it up to the rest of the committee if they have. Do you are, do you get it reimbursed from any systems at all when you act as an interpreter for people either in the courts or the Department of Health or any place. As an interpreter. Yeah. I mean, yes. So this is US CLI and a LV, who are the two major employer of the interpretation services, they usually they hire us and they do I do always that hey, if I bring more patient. But that is often time a organizational company health center, they are federal have qualified they have to provide they have the grand, the hospital, what not. If I'm a small business if I'm become a private practice and want to see a person who doesn't speak English and want to have an interpreter. I have to pay us AI and a LV out of my pocket. If I don't have math, if I don't build math and that the case building is that tiny. Not a lot of people willing to go there to do that, and private interest, and you can just forget about it. And that is really not helping increase mental health services for people who don't speak English. Thank you. Thank you. Does any other committee member have a question here. Honoring her time. Senator Clarkson. Thank you, Linda. This is I think this is important currently now if it if someone requests I know you said one of the problems is is not everybody understands that they can request translation services. But if a person does request translation services. The, the state or you were talking about DCF DCF is required to provide them are they not. However, the education pieces. Not, you know, a lot of people don't don't know where to get it and the idea, you know, and it is, even though there's laws out there the super white North has clearly stayed that it is, you know, with anyone who received federal funding has to provide it to us. I think the emphasis on, let's make it emphasis we have a poll, we need the protocol, it needs like a education, not just one time, you know, we knew, new employee orientation like all those. I, again, this is a, this is a, I shouldn't say, but this is should would be able to create an example. You know, oftentimes someone just need to step in the system. Yeah. And do you, given that you know this system so well in the community. Well, how would you know at some point I think I know your time is short now, but it would I think we'd appreciate if you'd be kind of to send us some of your best thinking on how we could best educate both, you know, and plan I guess that's a piece of this bill really is is how we plan prospectively how we to educate everybody who could ask I mean I think education is a key core piece of this work. Yeah. And I think Amelia and Alison, they are, we work together in a group, and it is not just me saying I feel like it is a community based feedback to the state and to the agency. And you will have no trouble to, I mean, I mean, and Alison will tell you more about what our group does. And they will be, I think they will be very clear and will be very helpful on answering the question. So, I'm just going to make I know you have to run. I'm just going to make what I suspect that when I think about it I suspect that certain agencies or departments might not be forceful in telling people that they can have an interpreter because it would be much cheaper for them to say, Well, your uncle can translate for you or your, your mother or somebody can and we know that that's, that's a problem but I suspect that that there is that tendency to do that. All the time, thank you and this is education piece right, who's going to reinforce the law we have clearly, you know this is a human right issue and this is super right law staying there but people still do it so how could a stay Vermont, or how did the state law help pushing the gap. I actually just I'm not going to name name but just two months ago I call, I call our local small counseling group that we're going to say that we, we can see this patient because we are not going to provide interruptions and I was this is not right and I call them out and they completely change the story. But you know what, I don't even want to send my patient there anymore. Really not. I mean, even though you provide interpreter you clearly doesn't know how to, how to provide a adequate culturally appropriate adequate mental health services for my patients so. Thank you. Now that your last statement also was very telling. So, thank you so much and I do appreciate your being here and we will probably take be taking this on up again and we'll send you an invite the next time and whether you want to weigh in again or not, but we will send you an invite. I'm Kasia know me and she knows what I've been doing with an ASW in fact we are doing a very big piece on you probably would hear that but will be I'll be I'll be in touch and don't, don't be afraid to send me an email which out to me. Thanks Linda. Good to see you. See you Thursday. Bye. So, I understand that Amanda wants to go last. Is that right. Okay, so I don't have to tell you all my statistics. Fine. However, how the schedule here is kind of up to you so thank you. Where would we, who wants to go next I guess is Mike. Okay, and are you, you just say Vermont language justice project. Are you Kimberly. I'm Alison Sega. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, yes, I haven't figured out how to change that name I'll do that. I have a statement that I'm just going to read out. And then I, I'll send a copy of it to Gillian afterwards, the gale sorry to go afterwards. Okay. My name is Alison Sega, and I'm the director of the Vermont language justice project. The project began in March 2020, when the country was beginning to shut down from COVID. And I realized that the only information available to the monsters about this public health emergency was in English, both locally and nationally. I launched the Vermont multilingual Coronavirus Task Force, a volunteer effort to create educational videos with basic facts about COVID-19 in multiple languages. The first videos recorded by phone uploaded to a new YouTube channel and shared with Somali and Somali Bantu contacts through social media and WhatsApp. The task force of over 40 community partners who worked with refugees and immigrants in Chinden County, met at first twice a week to discuss how information could be shared about the ever changing nature of the virus, and the shutdown of the state of Vermont, in a format for people who had limited English proficiency and struggled to navigate the internet. Over the next 21 months we worked with translators to produce videos and sound files in more than 10 languages. We put out our messages through WhatsApp, a free texting service, Facebook, public access TV, case managers, working with refugees and immigrants. We put our media out through both the Winooski and the Burlington School District Robocall system. In the same way that you would get a message that there is a snow day, you would also now get a message for example about how the quarantine rules for testing positive for COVID had changed in your language. Thanks forward to February today. We have received back in November a grant from the CDC through the Vermont Department of Health, and we are currently writing scripts and making videos and sound files in 14 languages. As of today we've put out over 71 videos, each in up to 14 different languages, and to date have had over 49,000 hits on our YouTube channel. Initially we just focused on Chattanooga County but since receiving the grant we are now reaching out to the whole of Vermont. So we're now including Addison County where there is a significant Spanish speaking population and are reaching out to Brattleborough in the south through the school district there and the new refugee resettlement project. So what have we been learning. We are learning that the demand is insatiable not only for critical health information regarding COVID, but also to help with navigation of children in schools. We've just put out five different videos in our 14 languages that 70 videos in total on how to do the rapid antigen cell test that are being used all over the state and our schools in particular. To date since the end of December we've had over 11,000 views of these videos. Schools are using these videos daily. We've been told time and time again by many individuals as well as service providers that our project to save lives. If we'd not been able to mobilize in the way we did so quickly, providing crucial health information on our multiple languages. I do believe many more lives would have been lost to COVID. We've learned that there is no project like ours in the country. There is no one consistently putting out information in the many languages that we have in the format that we have about COVID. Just think when the vaccines came out in the winter of 2021 we were asked by the Department of Health in Florida. If they could put a Spanish video about the vaccines on the website. Florida wanted our Spanish video. Just last week the Health Department of North Carolina has asked if they could share all our videos on the self testing kits. On Sunday the Department of Health of the State of California requested use of our videos in Pashto and Dari for their new Afghan arrivals. We have been asked if we can do videos for the Department of Education, the Department of Mental Health, the Housing Authority's legal services for school districts and for various nonprofits. Just to be clear when I say we, it is me and my team of 11 translators who work many jobs and send me their SAM files sometimes at two in the morning. So what do we need? The state lacks a comprehensive system and detailed language access plan. Wherever monsters with limited English proficiency can participate fully in the services offered by government agencies, health and education in particular, but also public safety. Our method of working has been extremely successful as shown by the data I've just shared. Videos and sound files shared in a multitude of ways have saved lives and the plan needs to consider a multi-pronged approach to language access that goes beyond traditional translations on websites that few people are able to access. So we are working on COVID and this need has illuminated all the other needs that have never been addressed. If you don't speak English and your doctor orders a colonoscopy, how do you know what to do if you can't read the instructions on the medicine that they give you before you have the procedure? If your daughter is diagnosed with ADHD, how are you going to know best how to help them if you don't have clear information about what the diagnosis means in an accessible format. Is there a urgent state-wide public safety concern or even a local one, an ice storm, a heat wave, a burst water main? How is that information disseminated? What languages are that information disseminated in? We need to go beyond checking boxes. Be putting Google Translate up onto our websites as a solution to engaging folks with limited English proficiency. What do I recommend? I recommend a detailed access plan that is flexible in its approach to embrace the ever-changing needs of the community, the community of multi-lingual Vermonters, as well as the technology that can be used to be most effective. I recommend more funding, more flexibility in spending. If we are in agreement that we need to develop a comprehensive language access plan, we need to fund it adequately. We need to design a system of delivery and build capacity so we have enough trusted translators, content developers, and distribution that meets people where they're at. We welcome people from all over the world to Vermon, and it's something that I love about this state, which has been my home now for over 25 years. But we need to ensure that people who have limited English proficiency are given information in a language that they understand and a format that is accessible so that they can lead informed lives while they navigate their new homeland. The end. Thank you. I wasn't sure if that was a pause or the end. I do have a kind of a question. I wasn't sure I understood exactly when you were talking about the technology and the kind of interpretive, I understand there are some apps that interpret, that translate. So I wasn't sure I understand what your approach and your support of that is, as opposed to having people actually do the videos or the robocalls. So, so what we know about Google Translate is for some languages, it's kind of okay, maybe French, maybe Spanish but when you start looking at other languages, Nepali, Burmese. We've been told over and over again that if you just put in the language, it put it in English and press the button, what comes out in Burmese is not not only makes no sense but it's actually kind of dangerous because it really makes no sense. And so it's actually worse than it actually being in English. And we think that's true of many, many of the languages that are spoken in Chittenden County and in Vermont in general. And many of the languages aren't translatable there is no My My. My My is not a written language and My My is spoken by a lot of the Somali Bantu who've been resettled here in Chittenden County. So we don't recommend Google Translate at all. I mean, if you're going to use translation services, it's best to send your information out to trusted translation organizations. However, the reason that we're doing this in video format and in sound file sound bites is because so many people can't access the internet. I mean you have to be able to read English to find. It's a bit like you know when you make a phone call and they say if you don't speak English press one, you have to understand what that means right from the word go, you know. And the thing in order to navigate the internet to find the translator materials you have to definitely have a certain level of proficiency of the English language to get there in the first place. So what we provide is like links to, you know, to videos, which gets sent through texts, or get put out on social media and all you have to do is click that link. And it takes you straight to the video about the specific subject which could be how to do an on-go rapid test or how to what to do if you test positive for COVID and countless other things. Yeah, yeah. So I just have one follow up and then I see Senator Rom Hinsdale has her hand up but so it makes sense to me that for things that might be like how to use the test or what to do if you're going to have a colonoscopy or things like that that we can predict. But how do you, how do you quickly put something out where when there's an emergency if there's an ice storm or a hazardous waste spill or something like that. That's that's a really great question. And I think back to I live in Burlington. I think back to a couple of summers ago when there was some significant water problem. I got to drink the water for like 24 hours. And there was nothing so what what what local communities who spoke different languages they got together. They quickly put out a video. I remember Ali Dang did that and he sent it out through his social network. So one thing that I wasn't aware of when I when I moved here was that if you come from a community where you all speak a similar language which is not the dominant language. There's so many informal networks, like people have WhatsApp groups of like 50 100 people, and you can quickly, you can quickly access those groups. That's how we did it through that so and the same with schools you know Burlington and Winooski school have all their, all their students put together through language so if we needed to send a message out to all the Nepalese students. We send it to them and they plug it into their system and boom it goes out and that's what we do now we currently do that in Burlington and Winooski, and we're able to reach thousands of thousands of kids that way. I think that is a way forward and I think we need to be really mindful and flexible in how we do produce public safety information. There's potential systems in place, some of them are informal but some of them are formal. And we need to be able to think about how to utilize them. Thank you. Yeah, and the written word isn't isn't the way to go learning that over and over again. Thank you. That's helpful. Yeah, thank you Allison. And really, you did save lives and toward the beginning of the pandemic I just remember reaching out to a lot of agencies and saying, what are you saying in other languages because people can't wait for this information so you really I have informally talked to a lot of agencies about the importance of WhatsApp, that it has, you know, it's an international tool that's often used to do government broadcasts in other countries. Can you speak a little bit more about the trusted platforms or communication channels that you've tried to get information out and how you. Yeah, I mean, we use basically use WhatsApp. A lot of case managers who work for Amila's organization, as well as ALLV use WhatsApp to just communicate. Would you tell me what that is again. Sure, it's an app on your phone and it's a free texting service so as long as you have Wi Fi. You don't have to have a text you don't have to have a necessarily have a phone plan to do it so it's a great free resource and that's how I can contact my friends in England. You know for no charge we don't you don't have to have an iPhone you know with FaceTime you have to have the same type of phone. Oh Amila's putting something in there. Awesome. Thank you Amila. That's the main one, but also Facebook. A lot of people communicate through Facebook. I think those are the two main ones. And I'm, I'm excited to hear that government agencies are using WhatsApp. I didn't know that. That's, that's good. I think so Department of Public Safety said they understood the need to do that. Amila might know more if they've started to do that but they at least are getting it and I said that to emergency communication specifically. So then we need to have the people who can translate the messages and then have them broadcast it that way. Yeah, and then we need to desegregate people by language so that people can get the right language. Senator Clarkson. So Allison, I'm another Allison, it's lovely to have another Allison in this committee. And I'm only a half Brit so it's lovely to have a full one. Oh, okay. I applaud you in my other committee, I'm vice chair of Senate economic development and your entrepreneurial social justice gifts have been combined here. And it's so impressive to see that because you're you're acting quickly to fill a huge need. And you've created something so I have to ask you some economic development questions to and one relates to Linda's testimony. Employ 11 translators well first of all you set up as a for profit or I assume a nonprofit. So, so just to be clear when this project started, it was me. I worked full time for Howard Center. Yeah, I happen to be a filmmaker on the side. So every weekend for probably the first 18 months was spent doing this work pretty much for free. I managed to get money from the Department of Health. And that was funneled through Association Africans living in Vermont they were our fiscal sponsors at the time. When we got this money from the seat through the CDC. My colleagues at CCTV. Community television in China. If they would become my fiscal sponsors so now I'm employed through them the money gets channeled through them and that's a 501 C3 and that's a great it's a great connection because they can help with the production. That's great and I guess my second question goes to Linda's request that translator I do you employ translators or do you hire them as independent contractors and if so are they. It goes to Linda's question about benefits. I would assume you would have hoped to have enough income to actually hire and provide benefits but at the moment they're contractors is that right. Absolutely the independent contractors they get paid by the job. So they will get paid depending on the complexity of the script that we're asking them to do and the length of the script. And they get paid well because it's a really hard task to do it's a hard task to and we're often asking them to do things in a very quick turnaround. So I don't if you remember when the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was taken off the market just for five days. We had messaging out within 24 hours to tell people about that which was nobody else was able to do that the Department of Health has a very long procedure you know they send stuff out for translation. And it has to get checked by somebody else. And by the time they got it back it was over and done with Johnson Johnson was back on the market again you know so. Right. No great we will we applaud you right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Are there other questions now for Allison yes center Polina. I don't have a question I just want to say that sounds like an amazing project you should be really proud of yourself and your volunteers it really sounds incredibly effective. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah it's been a great thing. I hate to say this you should be charging those other states. I know that's what everybody said it all suddenly happened so quickly and I think we need to figure that out. Absolutely. It seems like there should be some kind of grant funding to push it out on a national level there should be should be some vehicle to make it possible to do that. We need to figure that out whenever I mean I only work four days a week so when I have a spare moment. We're going to certainly look into that yeah but you're right we should be charging spare moment you should rest too. I look forward to that. It's very eligible so maybe we can be thinking about this. Can we hear from Emila and then did I say that right Emila I want to say Emila. That was perfect. Most people can't do that. On the first try. Thank you. Thank you so much. Madam chair. Thank you so much senator run. Hinsdale for introducing this bill and for this opportunity to talk to you about this life survey life saving. I'm nervous that Allison and I and others have been involved with over many years so I'm Emila Majanovic I'm the director at USCRI Vermont which is the Vermont refugee resettlement program. Quickly about myself I arrived to Vermont as a refugee from Bosnia in 95 with some English I was fortunate enough to take private lessons back home and when I arrived I actually was able to carry on a basic conversation and you know within a couple months I was able to take classes at CCV and the rest is history so knowing English speaking English having access to information is life changing. And I am old fashioned so I have a PowerPoint presentation for you all so I'm just going to share my screen quickly and really go quickly through it. I do need to say that we have a refugee arrival at 325 this afternoon and I'm charged with picking up a warm meal. So I will need to go by probably quarter of three no no later than quarter of three so I will go quickly through my presentation and again thank you so much for the opportunity. So, I will start with a quote by one of my favorites, which says, the fact is that if you have not developed language you simply don't have access to most of human experience. And if you don't have access to experience then you're not going to be able to think properly. And I think, you know, it's it's as basic as as this quote, not having access to information in your language and in the cult culturally appropriate manner doesn't is an equity issue which Linda talked about it's a social justice issue. It simply is a humanity issue and and all of us as Vermonters feel, you know, are very passionate about all of those issues and want all Vermonters to have access to information and opportunities and be successful so just quickly I wanted to show you a breakdown of refugee arrivals. Over the past six years, about 1000 people arrived to Vermont from all over the globe so from about 386 individuals in fiscal year 16 to as of this week. Actually, we will be at 173 individuals which includes 150 Afghans. This is a breakdown by country fiscal year on across the top and countries of origin, and you can see that in our, you know, little mighty state of Vermont. We have individuals from a dozen different countries and this is not an exhaustive list because refugees have been coming to Vermont since the 80s. These are some of the languages that are spoken in our state. And there are other other languages which did not make it to the list Korean, for example, Japanese is there, and, and there certainly are others, which haven't made it to the list. And then Linda also talked about the title six and the civil rights act of 1964 and I'm sure my friend Amanda Garces will talk more about that it's the law title six six precipit prohibits discrimination on the basis of race color and national origin in any program activity that receives federal funds or financial assistance. So the this effort to have a law in place that will ensure access language access in the state of Vermont is way overdue, I would say. And I'm, I, you know, pick this line from the actual bill, the information outlines the agency's provision of life saving services and the steps an individual should take to access those services so the life saving services should should be broadly interpreted to include all state administered public funded services, where substantial harm could occur. If there's not linguistic access to information, even if death is not imminent. So what are some of the examples of services that the obvious one which Linda also talked about is Medicaid funded services and access to those services. One example is setting up an SST a transportation water and ice safety Allison talked about that recently couple days ago in in a town in Chittenden County I won't name any names. There wasn't a water issue. And there was a, you know, public announcement in English. So, you know, I raised the question, what about, you know, your residents who are, you know, non English speaker speakers, hunting safety lead poisoning public safety messaging beyond COVID-19. So, you know, disease outbreak, active shooter lockdown, severe weather warnings, court systems. And I will say that the courts have have done a really good job in ensuring that interpretation is available. And it is, we work with courts throughout Vermont and, you know, provide interpretation and translation services. However, at times, you know, not both, both parties have interpretation available so it becomes, it becomes really tricky it's a conflict of interest. Ensuring that both parties have interpretation services, law enforcement, public safety, and so on. The US CRI a formerly VRP has the longest running interpretation and translation service program in the state. All of our interpreters are professionally trained and they're bound by ethics, including National Council interpreting in healthcare international medical interpreting legislation and Vermont judiciary. The art of interpreting requires the interpreter to be accurate, to be bound by confidentiality and be impartial, and to stay within their role boundaries. 60 on-call employees, they're not independent contractors, they're on-call employees who speak among them about 25 plus languages. We're able to provide telephonic interpretation and since the pandemic we have utilized Zoom, WhatsApp, but the golden standard remains in-person interpretation and then translation that is written form. These are just some of the state agencies that we work with. We have a contract with buildings and general services which covers AHS agencies to provide interpretation and translation. We are so department of motor vehicles so as of this was two years ago it was also, it was another bill that was introduced and passed. Now that the test, the driver's license test is translated into 10 top languages spoken in Vermont and actually we are now able to have an interpreter, live interpreter during road test. And these are just some community providers that also utilize interpretation services through both US CRI and ALP. Questions? Just share that graphic. Thank you and I'm sorry I rushed through that. That was great. Thank you. Do you also have ASL interpreters? We do not. We have a Nepali sign language interpreter, but we do not have ASL interpreters. Is that something that we need? I mean that, yeah, because that would be not necessarily under your jurisdiction, but that is something we also need to look at. Amanda, we're going to speak a little bit. And some people who speak other languages need it. I mean it's not. Yes. I will just tell you a little, my niece is, right now works in the State Department in the Chinese division and she spent a lot of time in China and did some Mandarin ASL. Whatever that means, I'm not entirely sure, but she was working with a whole bunch of little kids in the, in where she lived. Yeah, wonderful. Yes, Senator Ron Hensale. I just want to say out loud, you know, I think in both the case of Allison and Emila, you know, it's going to take resources, not just to contract with folks and interpret, but a layer of resources on top to make sure that these organizations can support this, can have interpreters that speak to government services in a way that there's a lot of certification that goes in. You know, I didn't know if you wanted, I mean I think that's part of the reason for the language access plan, otherwise the contracts are sometimes come do this rather than make sure that there's an ongoing relationship and I didn't know if you could speak to that. Yes. Thank you so much. That's such a critical piece. There is one thing to have a contract in place, it's, it's a very different thing to number one, have qualified and trained interpreters who can continue to work as Linda said, you know, this is in Vermont it's not a profession because there isn't enough demand and then for providers to have access to education and which is so critical and to understand how to work with interpreters. What are the, you know, you know, you have a pre session and you during the session this is you do this and this is the, you know, it's really an art, and then to make sure that they rely on professionally trained interpreters and not family members or friends or, or neighbors. So, and to offer those training opportunities, you know, at sort of regular basis, but those agencies need to commit, you know, with every new hire it will be part of your onboarding. And Allison Linda and a few other of us were fortunate enough last summer to get a small grant from Department of Mental Health to offer training, which included working with interpreters, and it was really well received and you know there was appetite for more sort of higher level, you know where, where do we go from here. This may be a really naive question, and I hope to goodness that it doesn't offend anybody. But I know with ASL, for example, that most of the ASL interpreters are not themselves deaf. So they don't really understand the, the deaf community, and how that I mean, it's hard to understand a community that you're not a part of. So is it important for interpreters to be a part of to come from a particular community for which they're interpreting. Does that make any sense to you? Yes, yes. You know, I would say that what is important is that the individual has their language skills in both the target language and the foreign language is at the level, at a certain level high, high level. Whether it's important that they come from that particular group, cultural group, I would say not necessarily, I'm just thinking about some of our interpreters. You know, they are, and most of them I would say probably 90%, if not more, are members of those different refugee or immigrant communities, but we do have a number of interpreters who are not, who studied language in college and, you know, had training, interpreter training, and, you know, are doing this as, you know, as sort of a side gig. They must need to have some understanding of the culture, though. Oh, not just the language. Yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Can I just add one thing which is, I think there's two definitions of community, community that you live in, and the community that you're part of. So my point being that I've experienced times when I was a social worker that people didn't want somebody from their community to be their interpreter, because this is such a small, small state and the information was so personal. I'm thinking particularly of a court situation where they actually hired somebody from New Hampshire, who was completely outside of our community because of the nature of the offence and stuff. So there's community locally and then there's, and there's, and there's culture, I think some of those can be, you know, those are, those are often different things. Yeah, that's true. I do have a comment, Senator, and then I'm going to run good to Amanda here before we run out of time. Yeah, so number one, I've just seen court interpreters interpreting for both parties, which is really bad practice. So, you know, we need to make sure that is known to the court system that that's not okay. When I worked at steps to end domestic violence, you'd have someone walk in and say, I'm the only person they trust, you still should get a phone interpreter to make sure that really is the only person they trust that could be someone who's really close with their husband. And you know that is never good practice. The third thing I'll say is when I was a preschool teacher at Burlington Children's Space. There was a young boy whose parents were spoke German and Spanish from Guatemala, and the little boy was struggling so much and everybody thought that he was just having trouble integrating all the languages. And it took them over a year to realize that he was deaf. And so, you know, a lot of times common sense just sometimes goes out the window when we hear people speak other languages we think like, it's just a cultural thing, you know, but you also have to treat that young person or that child, you know, like they could use a range of services and sometimes we lose track of that when we have cultural barriers. Thank you. So can we jump here to Amanda, and thank you. You are welcome to stay with us, both of you, or not. I know you have to go get a hot meal. I do. I do have to jump off, but thank you so much for this opportunity. Yes, thank you. I'm happy to come back. Likewise. Thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. For the record, my name is Amanda Garces. I am the director of policy education and outreach for the Vermont Human Rights Commission. And thank you, Chair White and members of the committees to have me here today. As you know, the Human Rights Commission is here to promote full civil and human rights in Vermont. We enforce the laws over which we have jurisdiction through investigation, conciliations and litigation, as well as providing education and training. It develops and advances policies and legislation related to the protection of the most vulnerable for mantras. We open the door to refugees and we welcome immigrants to work in our farms. As we strive to diversify our state, we must also start providing access to our agencies and departments. Today, I'm very happy to over-test the money on this, requiring state agencies to create language access plans. As you hear my accent, I'm very passionate about this subject. We believe this begins the path for a conversation around language justice. It's a term that has been used for decades and is evolving. Essentially, it's the path for respecting every individual's fundamental language rights to be able to communicate, understand and be understood in the language in which they prefer and feel most articulate and powerful. I do sound a lot smarter than Spanish sometimes. There is dignity that comes with being able to explain yourself in your language. This is really a tool to advance human rights in our state. It offers a vision of society, and this is a quote from a great tool kit that was developed on language justice. It offers a vision of society that honors language and culture as fundamental human rights, and which does not settle for providing more people with access to this quote rather alters institutions to provide space for full democratic participation. Vermonters who are foreign born may have almost 5% of the population, and that was from the Census Bureau in 2018 that was 30,813 immigrants. US born Vermonters primarily speak English and only 0.2% of that population is speaking less than very well. Comparatively, approximately 30.8% of Vermonters who are foreign born report speaking English less than very well. That was data from the Migration Policy Institute. Vermonters who are born in a foreign country are essential to our economic well being. We have more than half a billion dollars to our economy, that's 608.4 million in spending power after tax. In 2018, 9803 immigrant workers comprised 6% of the labor force. Vermon contribute to hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, 194.2 million in federal taxes, and 88.9 million in state and local taxes in 2018. These are outdated statistics, but you get the point. Hopefully we'll get more statistics. Currently, immigrant business owners generate millions in revenue, 1335 immigrant business owners account for 3% of all self employed over among residents and generated 25.7 million in business incomes. That just to say that we need to be able to think through this as well. With that, I would like to add that in any access plans and language justice conversations, we must include our deaf and hard of hearing community. As you said that Title VI of the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, states that no person in the United States shall on the ground of race, color, or national origin be excluded from participation and be denied the benefits or subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. Further, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, commonly referred as 504, requires that no otherwise qualified individual with a disability shall solely by reason of his or her disability be excluded from the participation and be denied the benefits or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. So this extends to our deaf and hard of hearing community and I would love to see that reflected in this bill as well. I want to then share a little bit of the experience of the HRC when thinking of language access. I came two years ago I started the job and the entire team is very committed to this is one of our protected categories around national origin. And so we've been doing a lot of pieces and pieces around that we did a video with to explain what the Human Rights Commission was we translated that into 10 languages. I love a lot of our programs that we're doing we're offering transition services, which is that a fabulous language justice panel, which we if you're interested I can send you the video and the caption so you can read through it. We brought together. Professor jump to Ronnie who is from University of Vermont, who you should have here to talk a little bit about the deaf and hard hearing community. So he spoke, we brought Odelia Romero was this amazing indigenous person from Los Angeles who started an interpreting program for indigenous peoples in Los Angeles because we had that lack of problems. And she brings a very different perspective about what Senator White was talking about about the cultural component that you need to have. And the conversations around like in Spanish, for example, you have all these Latin American countries that have very different words for the same work. So you need to be able to understand that a little bit. I also saw in here where we have been working on looking at all of our applications condensing them so then we can have them translated I'm in the process of doing that right now. Making sure that we don't have a Google translator on our website, but that we have. We're not going to have the money to translate everything but at least to be able to give the point to people to request it from us in any of the communication that we do. And so I think it's a process and I see the bill. You know that process and what agencies need to do but I do think it's imperative. I see some of the agency having Google translate. Amela and Allison talked a little bit about that. It's not very good. Nobody should be using it. I had a conversation with some of the state agencies that, you know, something is better than nothing and I said no you don't you know give it an apple. Just because there's an apple right like so I don't think we should we should really have agents be thinking about this. The Vermont judiciary just created a language access plan in 2021. I think it will be amazing to hear from them about this bill and what they're doing around the court system because they are they do have one person that is just for the Vermont judiciary who's thinking about this will create a language access plan and was in charge of that. Amela talked about life saving access and examples of those services I just want to ask again for us to think about deaf and hard of hearing. When it comes to life saving access and you know, radio and all of that stuff and like how are we going to get there. So the same conversations that we have and so overall I think I'm not going to repeat anything that everybody said but I just want to say that we do need to put some resources. It does take a level of expertise editors that can like vouch through whatever is being said and I think this is a great great right step in the right direction. Thank you. Thank you. I just, I'm just going to make one comment that I know that deaf and hard of hearing children are eligible under 504 services, but I want to make sure we don't identify deaf and hard of hearing as a disability. We've had, we've done a lot of work in this committee with the deaf and hard of hearing community and they will tell you that they, they are not disabled, they have a different language. Yeah, thank you for saying that and there's that conversation happen all over around. Yes. Yeah. So, any questions for Amanda. I, I liked your. Well, could I, I'm sorry. Yes, please, please. I mean this is sort of an easy question in a way but I'm wondering what kind of response you've gotten from different state agencies, I assume it very literally varies from agency to agency but I'm just wondering what, like what your take is on the openness of state agencies to work with you on these kinds of things. I think everybody, you know, wants so I think it's a matter of resources lack of understanding sometimes. And, yeah, pressure. So I don't think anybody I think anybody saying no, but I think they just need a little push. I liked your comment about something is better than nothing but a rotten apple isn't necessarily better than no apple. No, I liked that. Thank you. Senator Clarkson. So, of all the co ARPA money resources we've heard lots about in this bill in this figurative building that we're in and have been in for the last two years. You know, I don't think I've heard other than Allison's talk about getting money through the CDC. I don't think I've heard any talk about the resources that must be available for this kind of work with ARPA because the COVID needs all the things that needed to be communicated through that. I would assume we could find out what resources are available through joint fiscal and, and, and apply some of them here. I mean this is, it strikes me. Yeah, Amanda. So as you know Allison's project, the languages and the human rights commission said in many of those meetings. I think there's one thing that is really important is that a lot of the services are concentrated in Chinden County. So the rest of the state who also have populations of people who don't speak English, don't have the same access. So for example, in schools. We were in Chinden School District and we knew a skewer took all those videos and they were sending them to the schools through Robert Poles, right? Montpelier also has and I live in Montpelier this way. No, we also have language access needs but you know that wasn't, you know, the resources, whether it's a district or whether whatever it is like some of those districts are not thinking the same. We need to think about when we're, even if it's one person that needs that access, if we are given the access in Chinden County and we need to be able to extend that through our whole state. We have, yeah, because we, because we all access the services of the state at one point and another, whether we live in Chinden County or not. Yeah. And most of us don't. Or at least most of us here don't. So any other questions or comments? I think that our next step in this, if you think this makes sense committee is to, I know that Susanna Davis was working on a language access project and I think the next step is to have her come in and talk to us and we were going to have her come in today but time, because of time, time constraints, it made sense for her to come in it on another day to talk about where she is with that project and what's happening at the state level and how, how this bill fits into her project and compliments it. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. That makes good sense. Is Kimberly Frampton also coming in with her or is Kimberly Frampton. There was another witness listed here. Kimberly Frampton. So she was with the Association of Africans living in Vermont. Right. Is she, is she also. Well, if we can have her come in if she wants to, but she was not necessarily connected to Susanna's project. It would be, Gail, there was a snafu where Amela wasn't on the original list. I don't know what happened with Kimberly. It would be good to have someone from AALB I feel like they have done as much if not more interpretation services. They've done interpretation services for longer than USCRI. They are, you know, probably the, the biggest and longest provider. So whatever happened, it probably would still be good to hear from AALB. I don't know that it would differ that much, but they, again, Amela and AALB would be the most likely to be able to say, here's what the contract would need to look like, here's what we need out of a relationship because no one else provides these services in such a large quantity right now. Yeah, we definitely will have and, and everybody who is here today will also get an invite so that you can come. So if there are questions about it, but I think that so we can look at how, how Susanna's project fits into this bill and how they can complement each other and where there might need to be changes in the bill to complement her project. Because, unfortunately, I'm sure as you know, Amanda, we deal in the details. And we love the big concepts and the, the ideals, but when we write legislation, we have to actually get the details right. So if that makes sense, yes, Senator Collamore. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think based on some of the testimony today, we ought to have somebody come in from the, from our judiciary to, to tell us about, they seem to be ahead in this more than some of the other branches. Good idea. That'll probably be Judge Zona. Okay, great. Good idea. And I do now have a name from Amanda of somebody for ASL specifically, which would be good. Okay. Yes, because we have in this committee we've done nothing around other language except ASL and that was, that was a very exciting project that we worked on it was. Unfortunately, I mean it was exciting but unfortunately it was the only time in the presentation of a bill in the Senate that there's ever been an interpreter on the floor. It was, but anyway. Okay, committee, so we will. Thank you, Amanda. I think committee will take, we're scheduled to meet. It says either three or three 15 I don't remember but we're going to meet at three 15. And what we're going to do before we jump into, let's see what is it we're jumping into my little chart. Your favorite bill, the municipal bill. Oh yes, the municipal bill. And Tucker will be with us. But and right before we jump into that, I'd like us to look at the bill that we just got from the, that was sent to us from the house today I think it was age 693. It's one of those that we really need to get out pronto, we should have. I don't know. This is the Northeast Kingdom, solid waste management. Remember they have this bizarre way of doing their, their budgets, and we dealt with it last year when we did the, the budgeting but for some reason it never, they never brought it to us this year so for their annual meeting issue. So I'd like us to, we did pass this exact language last year, and I'd like us to just get it so that we can get it out if that makes sense and Tucker is the drafter so he'll be with us. Perfect. Okay, great. Thank you.