Nashville Argentine-American, Delaware Tech Train Bilinguals to Flatten the Curve
NASHVILLE, TN – Critically needed and federally mandated medical interpreters will now be trained by a partnership between Delaware Technical Community College and Nashville’s Sanchez-Vega Communications, LLC. The 64-hour training launches on 02/01/22 and will run via Zoom for 16 weeks to train bilingual individuals to become qualified healthcare and education interpreters. This is the second iteration of this workforce development training: the first one ran this past fall 2021.
Interpreters are oftentimes referred to as “translators”. However, they are not the same. Translators deal with the written word, whereas interpreters deal with the spoken word.
Interpreter training is federally mandated because lives can hang on the line in a medical setting if interpretation is not accurate and complete. Individuals need comprehensive training to learn how to manage interpreted encounters, and make critical moment-to-moment decisions to remain true to the messages exchanged, especially when dealing with someone’s health.
“I am excited to continue to offer our flagship training through Del Tech. The LEP [Limited English Proficient] population in Delaware has grown exponentially over the last decade. Bilingual skills, which can take years to develop, are what many foreign born can offer when arriving to American communities. Monetizing the use of those skills, while providing an essential service for LEP individuals and English-speakers alike, is a win-win for all involved”, says Diana Sanchez-Vega, Founder & Owner of Sanchez-Vega Communications, LLC. “Our organization continues to see the positive impact of maximizing bilingual human resources to increase both health and education outcomes, at the local, regional, and even national level, thanks to our now ‘highly remote-operating’ society.”
This innovative partnership will certainly make healthcare and education settings safer by qualifying more bilingual individuals to effectively facilitate communication during bilingual conversations.
“Workforce Development and Community Education strives to create programs that enhance the local workforce as well as benefit the community,” says Kara Funkhouser, Program Manager, Workforce Development and Community Education at Delaware Tech. “This training provides qualified interpreters to an area that is in need of their services. These individuals and their knowledge play a vital role in helping healthcare workers successfully treat and better serve their patients.”
The need for qualified interpreters has proven to be even more essential now in the face of COVID. As students go back to attending brick-and-mortar classes, ramped-up health safety protocols in schools will require staff and families to frequently have health-related conversations, carving into an already packed school day. Effective bilingual communication will be critical to ensure compliance and monitoring.
Federal mandates requiring qualifications of those interpreting for LEP individuals who interact with federally subsidized organizations have been in place since the Civil Rights Act (Title VI). At the Federal level, these requirements were later expanded in the year 2000 by Executive Order 13166 and, more recently, by Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act – whose revised final rule went into effect in August of 2020.
Sanchez-Vega Communications, LLC, empowers bilingual and multilingual individuals to monetize the true value of their bilingual and multilingual skills, by providing customized career coaching services, delivering comprehensive interpreter trainings, and partnering with organizations that invest in bilingual human resources to positively impact their bottom line.
For more information, please contact Diana Sanchez-Vega at 615-585-9884 (talk/text) or at sanchezvegadiana@gmail.com, or visit https://sanchez-vega.net.
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