Cultivating Community Resources to Address Language Barriers in Healthcare

This poster presentation describes a collaborative strategy to address language barriers in health care in central Ohio. A shortage of health care interpreters in the central Ohio region compromises the health of a significant portion of our region's most vulnerable population. A collaborative strategy implemented by South-Western City School District, The Ohio State University and Primary One Health responds to this challenge through the development of a high school career pathway program to train certified health care interpreters.

Description

This poster presentation describes a collaborative strategy to address language barriers in health care in central Ohio. A shortage of health care interpreters in the central Ohio region compromises the health of a significant portion of our region's most vulnerable population. A collaborative strategy implemented by South-Western City School District, The Ohio State University and Primary One Health responds to this challenge through the development of a high school career pathway program to train certified health care interpreters. The pathway includes a college preparatory sequence of Spanish courses in ninth and 10th grade, a 12-credit block of Advanced Spanish language courses offered through College Credit Plus, and an internship in a community health center serving a majority of Spanish-speaking patients. This presentation will focus on progress-to-date of participants and describe the potential impact of the project on the participants and the community. This presentation will be of interest to school district representatives, education policymakers, health care administrators, and language access coordinators. The presenters include faculty members and administrators from Ohio State and South-Western City School District, and interpreters and managers from Primary One and The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
AUTHOR AFFILIATION: Glenn Martinez, Professor, The Ohio State University, martinez.474@osu.edu (Corresponding Author); Ed Kennedy, Coordinator of EL Services, South-Western City Schools; Amy Schakat, Coordinator of Career-Technical Education, Southwestern City Schools; Michael Schwarten, Spanish Teacher; Milly Valverde, Director Interpretive Services, The Ohio State University.

Keywords

health care interpreters, vocational education, College Credit Plus

Citation

Engaged Scholars, v. 6 (2018).

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/1811/84734

Collections

Engaged Scholars: Volume 6 (2018)

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