San Francisco Immigrant Forum - Regular Meeting

Welcome in. We're going to give folks just a moment to sign on. All right folks, welcome into the SF Immigrant Forum regular meeting webinar today on July 30th, 2025. Before we get started, I just wanted to let folks know that we do have interpretation available today. So if you need interpretation, you can log in. to Zoom and we have multilingual instructions up on the screen that I will allow folks to read and sign on to the interpretation channels. Great so hopefully folks are connected and let's get started. I wanted to overview the agenda of today's special or today's S of Immigrant Forum meeting with a special topic on language access policy and community resources. We'll start today's meeting with some updates from our steering committee of city departments. Um, and for this special presentations will we have 3 today, which is very exciting. The 1st speaker will be, uh, speakers will be from the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs language access team. And we'll be hearing more about the language access ordinance, how to submit a complaint and other, um, upcoming updates to the language access ordinance. After that, we'll hear from the Language Access Network on community resources, as well as the advocacy around the Language Access Ordinance. And then we'll close out with some speakers from Targimli about their free and affordable interpretation and translation services for folks that serve immigrants. We will have an opportunity to do Q&A after each presenter. How you will participate in Q&A is there is a Q&A function at the bottom of the Zoom. Please type any questions you have into that box. We will see them, we'll collect them, and then we will answer those live. So make sure you utilize that Q&A box to ask your questions. We won't be a muting or asking questions in that capacity but please do type them into the box and then we'll have some closing reminders but before we get into our updates i just wanted to remind folks about the sf immigrant forum meeting this is the fourth one we've hosted in 2025 so thank you if you've if this is your first time thank you for joining if this is your fourth time welcome back um the the sf immigrant forum is really meant to convene san francisco-based service providers that work directly with immigrant communities to share valuable resources and information and enhance community support efforts through regular communication and that includes through a resource website an email listserv and regular community forums like this The website is sf.gov slash immigrants and this is on the city's website and it includes a wide array of resources from immigration legal support to health care information to housing, food, know your rights and it's continuously updated. So we really encourage folks to utilize this website as a resource. The second aspect is our listserv. I have some information up on the screen on how to join that listserv if you aren't already a part of it. It is the SF Immigrant Forum Google group. If you send an email to that email address, it goes to everyone on the Google group so you can share upcoming events. resources or even ask for support and questions from this group. And there's some instructions on how to join. However, if you need some extra assistance on joining, feel free to reach out to us at civic.engagement at sfgov.org. The next Immigrant Forum meeting will be held in September. Um, specifically on September 24th, that topic we're hoping to kind of regroup from the topic we covered in January around immigrant rights and resources in San Francisco and hear from our community partners on the ground about what's happening. So, if you are interested, um, please go to our website and and register just like you did for this 1 over zoom and that is up on the website. S. F. dot. Gov slash immigrants. And the last update I will share is an opportunity for anyone to present at future SF Immigrant Forum meetings. We're looking for possible presenters in November since we do have the September one covered. So if anyone is interested in presenting on topics that are relevant to this group, You can scan this QR code and fill out a Google request form or visit the website that's just below that. And this opportunity should be around like 15 to 20 minute presentations around a specific topic. All right, those are all of my updates. Thank you all again for being here. I'm going to pass it to OCEA's Deputy Director Richard Whipple, who will be giving some updates from OCEA, the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs. But as a reminder, our steering committee is comprised of these four departments, and Rich will be providing some updates from our other department leadership that weren't able to make it here. So thanks, Rich.

Thanks Jamie and good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us. Echoing the shout out to our sister departments listed here, the Human Services Agency, Department of Public Health, and Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development for really holding this space and helping to promote this important forum to share updates and information with you all. A couple of things we wanted to just in way of updates from departments that we wanted to share with community. First is a few events. The first we wanted to flag on the screen in front of you is our work permit clinic. This is for asylum seekers who've already submitted their asylum application and have completed the 150 day window to be able to then apply for their work permit. It is Tuesday, August 26th here in San Francisco, and we encourage folks to spread the word. It is by appointment, so folks can call or text the phone number here or scan the QR code to refer folks. Again, we know there's lots of ways that people could be eligible for a work permit, so this clinic is really, again, for asylum seekers who have applied for asylum to help them get their work permit applications completed. The next workshop I wanted to share is our free citizenship workshop. This is for eligible green card holders or permanent residents who are ready to naturalize and become U.S. citizens. This is also another free workshop, also community-run and community-oriented. This will be September 13th, a Saturday, here in San Francisco as well. This event will be at the County Fair Building and Golden Gate Park so come through and enjoy the park and also volunteer and or bring folks ready to naturalize again it's appointment based so we really encourage folks to call or text to make sure that they get an appointment for this workshop there are limited slots for both of these events A few other updates I wanted to share just in terms of the broader work that's been happening and some of the amazing work that's really based in community. Wanted to share an important update with folks, and there may be folks from our community partners here on the call, but just wanted to share on their behalf. Some important updates around our rapid response network and our hotline. As folks know, San Francisco has a robust and important citywide multilingual rapid response hotline that is available for individuals to call to dispatch immigration legal services and to report any ICE activity. We wanted to share an important update on behalf of the network that the hotline is now also available to call for folks to request accompaniment. As we know, we've seen an uptick in enforcement at ICE check-ins and immigration court hearings. Just this important reminder to get out to community that folks can call the same rapid response hotline phone number, not only to continue to report or dispatch legal services and inquire about activities that have been rumored, but also to request accompaniment. And lastly, to request any urgent consultations that may need to be over the phone or telephonic. So important to flag that there's slightly broadened use of this hotline, and we really appreciate our partners that hold that down. I know many of you on the call here are part of staffing that important hotline. The other piece that we wanted to share in terms of the great work that our coalitions do, again, the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative, and SFILDN, the San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network. There's also some volunteer opportunities, particularly for SFILDC. We can drop a link in the chat for folks who are interested in supporting some of the work that is growing around accompaniment or supporting other volunteer roles as we put together, as we support the work that they're doing to put together clinics and other responses. But just wanted to plug some of those updates. I also wanted to mention that we're hoping to dedicate our next immigrant forum kind of back on this topic. I know in January we did hear from the Rapid Response Network and we learned about immigrant rights and resources. We're hoping to circle back to that in September for the next webinar because we know so much has changed in this landscape and so much is going on that requires important updates. So looking forward to hearing from those folks at our September space. A couple of other things we wanted to share 1, 1, important update in terms of what's happening city wide just from lens is around the prop E task force. So, for those of you who don't know, last year, San Francisco voters passed what we call property. Which basically created a commission streamlining task force and essentially this task force. Is tasked with making recommendations to the city about the various boards, commissions and advisory bodies that exist in the city and which to keep it independent bodies and which to modify or consolidate or eliminate. So we're bringing this up because it's an important process we think that the public should be aware of. And we also wanted to flag that the Immigrants' Rights Commission, which was one of the first commissions of its kind in the country, is one of the public bodies that may potentially be impacted. So we wanted to encourage anyone interested in weighing in about the future of all city commissions and the Immigrant Rights Commission in particular by emailing the task force at commissionstreamlining At dot org, and we will drop this in the chat. There's also some upcoming meetings and hearings that are open to the public. So we encourage folks to be aware, not just to the immigrant rights commission, but any other city commissions or bodies that are important for vulnerable communities, immigrant communities, and some of the most directly impacted the climate that we're in right now. I wanted to make sure folks were aware. I know that the property task force does not sound wildly exciting, but it is very important actually. And then I don't think there's many other updates from from my sister departments. I know Christie from isn't able to join us, but I did want to share on her behalf. That she wanted to reiterate the Department of public health is really committed to protecting and promoting the health of all San Franciscans and reiterating that there's an important realization that the city is healthier when everybody has access to health care services, public health programs. And, of course, regardless of backgrounds and identities. So what this means more in practice for DPH is that they are developing immigration protocols and policy trainings, which have been continuing across different medical sites, hospitals, clinics and public health programs. Their clinics are promoting telehealth appointments to support patients who are canceling in-person appointments for fear of coming in person. We know some folks are no longer accessing health care in the same way or are not showing up to appointments. So this pivot to telehealth is important to note. And the Department of Public Health system of care supports all San Franciscans and supports with medical enrollment for individuals in need of healthcare treatment and medication. But just wanted to share those important top line messages from the Department of Public Health. And again, appreciate their partnership in co-leading this space along with us. So I know those were a lot of updates about things happening on the city end, as well as some updates around the important work happening from community, the rapid response network. We hope that folks will stay connected and you get a lot of these details. You can, of course, find on the immigrant forum website that Jamie previously mentioned. So that is it for me, and I'll pass it back to you, Jamie.

Thanks, Rich. Really appreciate those updates. And we did our best to add links in. But again, all of these things that were mentioned are available on the website sf.gov slash immigrants, including links on how to get involved and upcoming events. All right, so let's transition into our special topic presentations on language access policy and community resources. Up first, we have my colleagues. I have the pleasure to introduce them from the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs Language Access Team. So with me, we have Ana DeCaroli and Elena Ruiz, and I will pass it over to them. Looking forward to your presentation. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Jamie. Hi, everyone. It's a real pleasure to be here with you today to talk about language access. I know there's a lot to cover, so we're going to go a little bit on a faster pace, but I'm glad we have time for Q&A also in the end. I will introduce myself again. My name is Ana DeCarolis. My pronouns are she, her, ella, and I am the Language Access and Policy Manager here at the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs, OCEA, and I'm joined by my colleague, Elena.

Hi, folks. Good afternoon. Elena Ruiz. My pronouns are she, her, ella. I am the Language Services Supervisor here at OCEA. Happy to be here.

So with that, we can go to the next slide to go over the agenda for today and also to talk a little bit more about the language access program here at OCEA. So OCEA is in charge of citywide compliance with the language access ordinance. And as part of those efforts, we provide training and technical assistance to city departments to support them in the implementation of the language access ordinance. We collect annual departmental data on LAO compliance, and we produce a summary compliance report of language access data and statewide trends. And OCIA also funds the Language Access Community Grant Program as part of an effort to partner with community-based organizations in order to advance language access rights and improve language services. so elena and i are part of a team the language access unit which also provides as i mentioned before capacity building trainings consultations to city departments and also when capacity allows direct language services for city departments in addition we investigate language access complaints received by our office great

Thank you, Ana. So now with this beautiful intro that Ana gave us, excuse me, I'm also sharing screen. We're going to go ahead and talk about definitions, the LAO required languages, the language access in San Francisco, the ordinance and the report. I want to jump in quickly to talk about the frequently used terms that you'll hear throughout the presentation. And the first one up is the LAO, the Language Access Ordinance. So that is the administrative code section 91 that directs city agencies to ensure that public services and information are accessible to all people regardless of language ability. Another term is LEP, which that stands for Limited English Proficient, and it's the term used to refer to people who don't speak English as a primary language and who have a limited ability to read, write, speak, or understand English. And now also you'll hear us say a lot San Francisco's required languages. So currently our language access ordinance requires city departments to provide language access services in Chinese, Spanish, and Filipino. And please do note that languages are certified by OCEA once they reach the population threshold of 10,000 LEP residents and effective January 1st per the amendments that passed in June 2024. the threshold will be decreasing from 10,000 to 6,000 LEP residents. As I mentioned, the current LAO required languages are Chinese, which for spoken, it's Cantonese and Mandarin. For written, the city standard is traditional Chinese. For Spanish, the majority of the SF population is from Mexico and Central America. And it's also the largest growing linguistic group in the United States, historically dating back to 1565. For Filipino, based in Tagalog, borrows Spanish and English terms, Filipino is the national language of the Philippines. And I'm sure you've seen this in the news and you've heard it as a rumor or just anywhere and everywhere. It is anticipated, and I want to highlight anticipated, that Vietnamese and or other languages may become eligible for certification in 2026. I'll pass it back to you, Anna.

Thank you, Elena. So, again, to ground us in why we're here to discuss language access. So we're proud to serve an incredibly diverse city where 1 in 3 San Francisco residents is an immigrant and where over 40 languages are spoken by our residents alone. And 42% of our residents speak a language other than English at home. So language access is key so that everyone in San Francisco can have meaningful access to health, public safety, and other city services and programs. So language access is also the law at every level of government. At the federal level, we have the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits recipients of federal funding from discriminating on the basis of national origin, which the Supreme Court has interpreted to include discrimination based on language. At the state level, we have the California Daimali a la Torre Bilingual Services Act signed in 1973, which requires state agencies to provide language services to limited English proficient people who comprise 5% or more of the state population. California has a broader framework of civil rights laws and regulations protecting language rights in our state and go further than federal law. At the local level, of course, we have since 2001 what was called the Equal Access to Services Ordinance and in 2009 was renamed as our San Francisco Language Access Ordinance, one of the strongest local language access laws in the country. This law was amended again in 2015 and again last year to both expand and strengthen language access. You may have heard or seen in the news that earlier this year at the federal level, there's a new executive order 14224, designating English as the official language of the United States. Please note that this executive order does not affect state and local language access laws and initiatives. The San Francisco Language Access Ordinance is in full effect and everyone in San Francisco has the right to access city programs and information in the language they feel most comfortable in. I will mention, as I mentioned before, that the San Francisco language access ordinance was amended last year to both strengthen and expand language access. Also, last year, the Board of Supervisors passed Resolution 348-24, reaffirming San Francisco's commitment to equitable language access for all residents and strengthening even more the city's language access initiatives. So now that we went over the policy framework, let's go into the language access ordinance and what it requires. So this is important to know also if you're helping someone so that you can let them know what the language access ordinance requirements are. So first, city departments that interact with the public must provide information and services to the public in language. This can be done through bilingual employees, and it also may be done, for example, by telephonic interpretation. So here the point is that departments must provide the same level of service to LEP persons as they provide English speakers. Also, per the Language Access Ordinance, departments must translate vital information in the required languages, which like Elena said before, they're currently Spanish, Chinese, and Filipino, and also into any other language by request. Also, departments must translate telephonic messages into the required languages and provide interpretation at public meetings and hearings when requested 48 hours in advance. Inform the public about the right to request language assistance and provision for services and provide language assistance in emergency situations. Now, I'll go a little bit more in depth around the amendments that were passed last year and those key changes. So, first, and Elena mentioned this before, the language population threshold is going to drop on January 1st, 2026 from 10,000 LEP individuals to 6,000 LEP individuals. So, what that means is that when the threshold comes into effect, OCEA will conduct an analysis of the most current census data and our other reliable sources to determine whether a new language meets this new threshold. If OCEAN makes that determination, then there's going to be a notification period of 120 days and the certification of a new language will take place after that process. Other important changes from the amendments, and we'll talk more about this in a minute, are new translation requirements for city departments, a clarified responsibility of city departments to budget for and coordinate the provision of language services, as well as enhanced responsibilities for OCEA around external reporting related to language access complaints and on public education on language access rights. I will now pass it over back to Elena.

Thank you, Ana. So Ana mentioned the requirement around translation and like vital information. So we want to quickly just kind of define that a little bit. And what is vital information? So vital information is any public facing Document and here's a series of things, right? It could be complaint forms applications notices about service eligibility signs brochures or flyers explaining services or programs tests, um, materials explaining the department services or programs, including public service announcements. So, the way we frame it is, like, anything that affects rights benefits duties and privileges of a community member. So, with the new translation requirements under the 2024 LAO amendments, departments now must acknowledge receipt of the translation request within 48 business hours. Departments also must share an update with the requester about when the translation is going to be completed. Along with this, also there's a translation requirement for vital information, which applies to publicly posted signage and digital content such as websites and social media. Ana is going to break down language access complaints now.

Thanks, Helena. So if you or someone you're working with experiences or does not experience or receive adequate language services from a city department, they can file a complaint with OCEA. And there are a number of ways that Anyone can file a complaint with us, for example, by going online to sf.gov slash lao-complaint and submit the form online. The form is available in English. in Spanish, Chinese, Filipino, as well as Russian. And for any other language, please let us know. The form will be translated into any other language by request. Also, folks can call OCIA at 415-554-0600 to file a complaint in your language. or you or someone you work with may get help from a community-based organization to fill out and submit the form. So once the form is submitted and the investigation is completed, then OCIA posts a summary complaint report, which are available on sf.gov slash language access. So, lastly, I will mention before we wrap that in addition to gathering and investigating LAO complaints, OCS Language Access Unit works real year-round, providing training, technical assistance, as I mentioned before, And also as part of these efforts, we publish our annual LAO Compliance Summary Report, which contains all information around language access provisions citywide in the previous fiscal year, as well as trends and recommendations. You can access this report also at sf.gov slash language access. And a summary of this report is available in Chinese, Spanish, and Filipino. So, with that, we wanted to thank you for your time and we're happy to answer your questions.

You're on mute, Jamie.

Thank you. Thank you all. Really appreciate giving us the breakdown of our local language access laws. The question that we got and we just have one is, does this apply to all of the Bay Area or just San Francisco?

Thank you for the question. So this language access ordinance applies to San Francisco city departments that interact with the public. So anyone who interacts with the city department has the right to access their services in language.

Perfect answer and thank you both again. If folks have follow up questions, feel free to reach out. or check out the website links that we dropped in the chat. Again, thank you both. Our next speaker is going to be coming up right here in a moment, and that is Annette Wong from Chinese for Affirmative Action, who is representing the Language Access Network of San Francisco today and will be giving us an overview of their work. So, Annette, I'll pass it to you. Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Jamie. I'm going to pull up my slide deck. Thank you all for your time today. Share a little bit more about the Language Access Network and our work. So my name is Annette Wong. I'm the Managing Director of Programs at Chinese for Affirmative Action. And we are a partner organization in the San Francisco Language Access Network. Land is comprised of several partners, and some of you may even be in this meeting today. But we've been around since 2012. We've been funded by OCEA to kind of support the community in accessing their right to language access. The following organizations have been a part of LAN at the African Advocacy Network, the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, the Central American Resource Center, and then a couple of the newer groups that we have from the last couple years, Southeast Asian Development Center and the South of Market Community Action Network. that we're really excited to be working with. So since 2012, we've been working together with OCEA to help make sure that community members understand their rights and know how to access those rights. And we've also been working with OCEA on some of the amendments that were mentioned earlier in the presentation. So what do we hear? A lot of our groups were in the community. We're hearing a lot of things from community members about their experiences with language access, and not just with the city, but anywhere they go. Even some of the kind of like state offices, private spaces, federal agencies as well. There are a lot of challenges that people face when it comes to language access. um and we're hoping that in the city of san francisco you know that's a different story because of the strong language access law that we have and also the work that we do on the community side to make sure that people know about those rights but these are just a few examples of some of the things that we often hear from community members you know when they go into you know any kind of uh space where they're trying to seek services And they try to navigate when language is a barrier. They notice that there's often a lack of confidentiality that when an interpreter may be involved that sometimes their private information gets spoken about in non-confidential ways. So that's definitely an issue. Long waiting times, lack of quality control. um sometimes there's an expectation that community members bring their own interpreter and sometimes our community because they're used to having to do that they just go ahead and preemptively do that because they just assume that there's not going to be language services and again i'm not talking about you know necessarily just city service i'm talking about kind of like any kind of when community members are seeking services anywhere these tend to be some of the experiences And I think that one thing that we really realized during COVID is the connection between language access and the digital divide. Because when offices were closed and more offices were turning towards phone, telephonic kinds of modes of communication or online, that that actually became much harder for our community members to access, for limited English proficient community members to access services. So, you know, in addition to addressing language access gaps, also needing to address the digital divide, going kind of hand in hand is definitely one of the bigger lessons coming out of COVID. And then also, you know, the unique needs of community members that speak languages that are, you know, more diffused or lesser known. So, you know, for sure, the four languages that have been certified, Chinese, Spanish, Filipino, and Vietnamese, We're very excited about Vietnamese, but there are also many in the San Francisco community that speak other languages like Arabic, like Russian, like, you know, various languages in the African, Afro-Caribbean diaspora. So really wanting to make sure that those folks have an avenue of recourse when they go somewhere to seek services. So what does LAN do? We talk a lot about like we're in the community and we're hearing feedback, et cetera. So what are we actually doing? So our mission is to advance language justice by educating, building power and advocating with immigrant communities to overcome and dismantle language barriers. So our kind of bread and butter is really community education. assessing community language access needs and supporting systems change that improve language access citywide. So I'll get a little bit more into each of these areas, but these are kind of the three main things that we do as a network. In the first area of community education, we do Language Access Know Your Rights workshops, and we can do them in English, Chinese, Spanish, Filipino, and now Vietnamese. And also, I didn't list all the languages here because I probably am going to miss some, but through our partner at African Advocacy Network, we can also do workshops in, I think they cover 10 plus languages. and of course through AROC, our other language access network partner, also in Arabic. So we'll do workshops on that and we also distribute materials along with those workshops that have written kinds of information about language access, including the law and the complaint process that was mentioned earlier in in the presentation so i'm not going to review those but that's a little bit about our some of our community education work so if you have if you have community members that want to workshop on language access we can certainly do that so we can go through and break down in language what those rights are how to file complaints and what are some of the new amendments that are that are being implemented The second area of work is assessing community language access needs. And what does that mean? So it means we try to collect data on how language access is being experienced, right? Because we have the law on one hand, and that would be the ideal if that was implemented perfectly every time. But we also want to collect data on how that's going. in the same way that departments are also collecting data on how they're implementing the language access ordinance. We also in the community want to make sure that those things are aligned. And so we do that in a few ways. We do something called spot checks, which is actually a little bit like a secret shopper kind of model for assessing city departmental language access implementation. So at our language access network organizations, we have folks that will go to different departments and request language access and kind of go through the process. And our hope is always that all the departments pass with flying colors. And we're so glad to see the efforts that are made by departments because we know that it's not an easy thing to implement language access. But when there are incidents where you know people aren't able to access the appropriate supportive services to get services in language. We do work with Osea to address those negative spot checks through the complaint process. So we do that. We also collect narrative data. So the spot checks are more kind of quantitative data. We also do narrative data collection. Every year we hear numerous stories from our community members about language access and their experience in accessing services in language. And so we gather that data and we write it up and we share that with OCEA so that they can also get a sense. OCEA also has a sense of how the services are landing for everyday San Franciscans. And then we also try to document and share best practices. So we want to promote community centered language access. And the way that we do that is by learning from one another and sharing those learnings. So we try to do that as well. The third area I mentioned was support systems. Support systems change to support language access citywide. So what does that mean? So we like to work with groups, organizations, agencies to improve language access, not just on a one-to-one case basis, but systematically. How do we create that systemic change so that we're not just serving the one person, but we're actually able to serve many people because we now have you know, good infrastructure in place to do so. So one way to do that is through language access advisory committees. So LAN SF will work with groups, agencies to start those kinds of committees. We can also help outreach for those committees, you know, meeting with agencies to discuss language access needs and practices, sharing some of our best practices and learning from others about how you all implement language access and how we can all improve, you know, citywide. uh emergency language access situations so uh land partnered closely with um other community-based organizations and also with the city uh during things like uh covid you know making sure that people understood what does social distancing mean what these are all very you know part of our everyday vernacular now but when it was first introduced it was a little bit confusing to be told you know you can't leave the house you can't interact with people outside of your household what does that mean So in those situations, we tried to make, we worked with the Department of Emergency Services and Emergency Management and OCIA to make sure that those things were, made sense for community and that it was landing in a way that community could receive the information. And then other common examples of where emergency language access situations could benefit from community-centered support is around public safety, when there are public safety situations. Other things that we've done to support language access citywide is participating in language access surveys. So when OCIA has done language access surveys, we've tried to help get them out to community members who are limited English proficient to get as broad a swath of participation as possible. And you know exploring different models of language access we as was mentioned earlier, you know we have one of the strongest language access ordinances in the country. But there are really interesting models, you know all over the country, so you know, looking into those learning more from others is always something that we try to do. Cultural responsiveness. I just wanted to include this slide because I just wanted to share a little bit more about, this is a little bit of how we approach language access as the language access network. To us, it's not just about translating or interpreting words, right? This is about also understanding where a person's coming from. and what's some of their worldview and some of the context of where they're coming from. And that helps us to be able to promote language access that is respectful, that is responsive, and that's grounded in kind of our shared humanity. So ultimately it's about how we treat people, and this is really lands approach when we're doing our respective work whether it's the community education work, whether it's the, you know, spot check work. That's really kind of how you know we ground our work in ourselves. So, you know, how can land support? So we're here as a resource. We want to partner with you to make city services accessible to all. So, you know, reach out to me. I'll have my contact information here. You know, we'd love to meet with you to strategize on community centered language access. We'd love to do workshops for you or your communities. If you have clients that have language access complaints to file, of course, as mentioned earlier, folks can file those complaints directly with OCEA. But if you have a community member that, for example, maybe they're just not very tech savvy, maybe they feel nervous about interacting with a government agency, maybe they just struggle with administrative kinds of tasks, you can reach out to any of our partner organizations. We're happy to help and assist to fill out the complaint form and also to kind of, you know, be a bridge between OCEA and community to make sure that those issues get worked out for our community members. So those are a few things we can offer. And if there's anything else that you can think of that you'd like to partner on, we're happy to consider it. This is my contact information. This is actually a photo of us after we passed the amendments at City Hall very recently, just several months ago. So this is my contact info. And I've also included my colleague, Jose Ng. He is not only the CAA Immigrant Rights Program Manager, but he is also our Language Access Network coordinator. So feel free to reach out to him as well. And thank you so much for the time. And I'll hand it back to Jamie.

Thank you so much, Annette. I really appreciate, first of all, LAN's partnership with OCEA. I think it's been really valuable for not only, you know, increasing language access services from the city's angle, but also community. I do have a question that I think was intended for our OCEA partners, but Annette, I'm going to have you answer it because I think you are equipped to speak on this from the community side. So if a community does not meet the threshold language, limited English proficient requirement, what could OCEA, the city or LAN SF do to help those smaller language communities gain accessibility to language services?

Yes, thank you for that question. So you know, I think even if a community member does not meet the threshold or doesn't speak a language that has met the threshold to be certified, I believe that I'm not going to actually respond for this. I believe that the process is that the city will still do what they can to serve that person in the language that they speak. On the community end, if that language can be identified and there is a land partner organization that has that language capacity, we would be more than happy to connect with you to help that person navigate the system, whatever system they're trying to move through. Typically, our bread and butter work is not just interpreting and translating, but for certain cases, we would definitely help to make sure that there was some kind of language support available.

Thanks, Annette. And I think from OCEA's perspective, you know, language access is for everyone, so anyone can request information and services in their language. And as you saw from our presentation, departments need to respond within 48 hours. And if folks have any difficulties, you can always reach out to OCEA. But yeah, thanks so much again, Annette. I'm going to move on to our next presenter. And again, thank you, everyone, for sticking with us and, you know, learning more about language access in San Francisco. Our next speaker is our speakers are from Targimli, who will be presenting on the free and affordable interpretation and translation access for organizations and immigrants alike. So I'd like to introduce and invite Sarah Haj Hassan, the CEO of Targimli, and Jennifer Gendron, the chief growth officer, to to I'll pass it over to you all for your presentation. Thanks again for being here.

Thanks for having us. Hi everyone, my name is Sarah Haj Hassan and I actually worked in San Francisco for five years. I was at the Arab Cultural and Community Center back in the day when they used to provide a lot of social services and I distinctly remember getting a bunch of phone calls from different organizations around the Bay Area, not to refer people to us but rather for translation services from our case managers. They were like, does anybody there speak Arabic? So it's great to meet you all. And I wanted to introduce you, I'm actually transitioning from my role at the end of this week. And I wanted to introduce you all to Jennifer, my colleague and the new chief growth officer of Terjimli.

Yeah, thanks Sarah. Great to be here amongst all of this great work and community. I'm brand new to Terjimli. I just got here this month. So Sarah will, explain our services much more eloquently than I could, but I will be your point of contact going forward. And we'll make sure you all get that information. So thanks. And thank you, Sarah.

So I don't know how much you all know about Tajimri, but we're a nonprofit organization with the mission of eliminating language barriers for immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and really anyone in need of language services in the humanitarian space. We've We really believe it's a human right to be heard and understood, and we believe that that is kind of a basis that allows for more equitable delivery of services and opportunities. How we do that is via our mobile app and platform. On our mobile app, we connect people in need of live interpretation or translation. in over 175 languages in under two minutes. And that's kind of the more conservative estimate. I'll tell you a little bit more about our different tiers of services in a moment. But since 2017, when we were founded, we're actually a Bay Area organization ourselves. We were founded in Mountain View. And since 2017, we've had users across 140 countries. And we've helped language access at over 1300 organizations globally, including I'm sure a few that you can recognize in the logos on the screen as well. Our whole thing is language should be accessible. And so we have different tiers that we offer for different language needs and abilities. So for example, our base service Tajimi Essentials is completely free. What we do is we crowdsource multilinguals from around the world to volunteer their time to provide free remote interpretation and translation services. This service is available to refugees and immigrants or organizations that don't have a budget. And so basically we have a mobile app where people can make a request and get connected to someone, request document translations, request over the phone interpretation as well. The next tier we have is called Tajimi Premium. And basically it's everything you get with the base services in addition to a bunch of additional features, including filters, a conference calling, access to some paid interpreters that increase your probability of matching for languages that either have really high demand or difficulty, sorry, really high demand or lower resource languages where it's harder to find the volunteers necessary. This version also comes with a desktop version of the app, which is often helpful for organizations that might have a front desk or something like that. And this one is mainly for humanitarians or organizations with smaller budgets as well. Lastly, we have our platinum services and that includes, and I'll go over in more detail soon, but that includes professional hotline and some really cool features that I'll go over in a second. I know we only have a couple minutes and I just realized I didn't do share sound. Oh, actually this one can be done without sound. I'm going to share just this one video since I want to make sure we have enough time that goes over our specific services that we have just to get a better sense of what it looks like and feels like. So the very cool part actually is that the coming up this year, the hub actually has already been launched. And I'll tell you a little bit more about that. I know that that's a huge issue when you work with lots of multilinguals and I'll tell you about it now. Basically before, in order to have a document translated, you had to get connected to someone, upload a document with a specific translator, and then stay in that, what we call session. So that connection until it was done. And then if you needed another language, you'd upload the same document, connect for that language, et cetera. And it would take quite a while. We've listened to you all and we know the pain. And so we now have a very cool feature where you can upload your document, select all the languages you want it translated into and submit your request. And basically it creates separate projects that people can accept and translate for you at the same time, which is much easier for you and a really cool feature when you work in a place like San Francisco. This is also available on web with premium access so you can manage all your translations online which can be really helpful. Now you may be wondering like what are the quality control in the process with all these volunteers. Our volunteers do self-report fluency but along with that We do have in-app onboarding and training that teaches them about confidentiality, HIPAA, what that means, what they have to comply to, et cetera. We also have in-app, that's mandatory. And then we have in-app trainings on safeguarding and best practice of interpretation. And then we have ratings. So every time someone engages with a translator, they rate them afterwards. And that rating goes into our algorithm, which decides who to reach out to next. Also, it's super easy to report people on the app. And so we have someone review anyone who's been reported, but also negatively rated sessions to make sure that everything is OK from a quality standpoint. So those are the things with the when we are dealing with all of the volunteers. But then we also have a professional hotline, which we're soon making available in app. So if you're an organization that has different types of needs. So, for example, you want to speak to a client and how to get to a bus stop and you're like, I can engage with a volunteer for this. But then you have a specific intake where you're like, no, I want a professional interpreter. Honestly, this is a great solution because it allows you and your team to have access to different types of volunteers, especially with budget cuts. We know that's been an issue. So you can basically engage with a volunteer or engage with a professional for higher stakes. And our hotline is a lower flat rate fee, no commitments in terms of minimum usage or price dependent on language or anything like that. So there are lots of pros to that. And we have a very high vetting process and quality controls as well. We've had nothing but positive feedback. And we take, you know, as an organization that was founded to specifically serve immigrants and refugees, We take anonymity, confidentiality, privacy, compliance very seriously. And so the app is designed to be anonymous. So even when you join, the translator and the person using the app can only see each other's first names, phone calls or internet calls. So we don't share numbers or anything like that. And conversations are deleted from the translator site as well. If you're dealing, I know it's kind of sensitive political times and nobody wants to have anything be subpoenaed, let's be real. And so if you wanted to delete your conversations, we even have a no record option. Normally, we do have records of sessions just for quality control. If someone reports something, we can go back and review it. But if you're worried about a specific conversation, you can select no record, which means that after you hang up, that data is completely deleted from our system as well. We know people are in hard times in terms of funding, so we're offering a 20% off discount. We created a custom code, so SFIF20 for you all. You can enter that when you add any services. Also, if there's a specific service that doesn't have, like, you know, the hotline where you are wondering, we will honor that discount as well. Just email jennifer at terjim.ly if you're interested, and we're open to questions.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate this presentation on such a great community resource. Let me just, there we go. Hi.

I forgot to mention that we are localizing our app in our top languages as well so that it's more available to immigrants and refugees themselves so that they can navigate. the world more easily.

Yeah, that was actually one of the questions, Sarah. Is the app interface translated into different languages? So maybe you can speak more about what's to come.

Yeah, we're working on translating it into our top 10 languages first, so the ones that are most demanded on the app. They don't perfectly align with San Francisco's. Actually, we have a lot of Dari, Pashto, Spanish, Arabic, Swahili, I think French, Kinyarwanda, Tigrinya, and I'm blanking on the couple others. but Ukrainian, I think. But basically, you'd be surprised at how hard it is to localize an app. And for a very long time, we were struggling to do that with all the changes we were making because we were really trying to iterate the app to get it to a place that we felt was something that would be really helpful for everybody. And we could just localize it and have it be accessible. So we are actually soon releasing the first 10 languages. And then we plan to continue to localize and release those as we're able to for other languages. And if any organizations, for example, if you all come together and you're like, hey, we really want this language, we can try to prioritize certain languages over others if you plan to share them with your communities. I forgot one more thing that I wanted to talk about, which is actually one of my favorite features that we have. We have something called Bring Your Own Translator as part of the you know, the customizable features we offer. And the idea is that you can centralize either your organization's interpreters or your community's interpreters on the app for exclusive access across certain accounts. So the idea is, for example, let's say you're an organization with multiple offices. You have certain community translators at some offices and at others, but then how do you coordinate them, et cetera? What we can do is we can centralize them on the app. Something I've actually pitched to the East Bay Refugee and Immigrant Forum, and they've been interested, and I don't know if it's possible to share this resource, is all of these organizations have community interpreters they trust that know the language, know the systems in the area, know the benefits, know all this stuff. Why not get these community interpreters? And when I was at the IRC, I knew that these community interpreters didn't have enough Um, work to even sustain themselves as a, as a job. And so why not centralize all of these community interpreters in one place and have them accessible across local organizations in the Bay area. That way you're supporting, you know, local interpreters. Um, you can have like specific standards that they meet. They represent the languages that you need, et cetera. So that was something that they were interested in and I thought was a really nice idea.

Yeah, I think we've been trying to do something similarly in San Francisco, so I would love to reach out to you after and get some ideas. But yeah, thank you for sharing that. Another question we have is, well, thanks for the great service. And I think you touched on this a little bit, but what languages are available on the app and how do customers pay for the services?

When you say, well, the language, we have over 175 languages available in the volunteer version of the app. So like the community interpreters around the world who are volunteering, the hotline has over 200 languages. And the hotline connection time is actually under 30 seconds, whereas the app's average connection time is under two minutes. We have, I would say that we have around, Jennifer, would you say like 30 to 40 languages we serve really well, and then a bunch that are not as frequently requested. But if we do have an organization that joins and really requires a certain language, we do an effort to do a like outreach and recruitment effort. Jennifer, go ahead. Yeah.

Yeah, no, so I was gonna say, and to your point on the hotline, we have now we're up to over 250 languages. And regarding payment, we can either invoice customers, or there's also a mechanism for them just to pay online as well.

That's super helpful. Thanks for sharing. And the last question I have from our folks online are, what have been the most common uses of Targimli across different user types?

Interesting. Well, resettlement has been probably the top user type. And that has been spans you know, everything from, like I said, getting them from one place to another, scheduling appointments, honestly, general check-ins, like, how are you doing today? How are things going? General intakes. We've had mental health intakes. We've had the local clinics from the medical side do appointments, medical, like, follow-ups on, like, just phone check-ins, reminders, things like that. Legal, we have a lot of legal organizations that use us for specifically asylum interviews and things like that. Asylum application translations. Honestly, just generally like community flyer translations, things like that. Like we have this event on Saturday. And then we have schools. So we've had teachers trying to speak to parents about like having conversations with parents about something about their child. With the hotline, we've had Head Start programs that use it to communicate with parents as well. And with local Head Start program, LAP individuals who are leading their own little centers as well. I would say that those are the top use cases in terms of like the different areas? So Jennifer, can you think of any specific ones?

Yeah, I dropped an answer in there, you know, NGOs, nonprofits, community organizations, I think you hit on most of them. We also work with healthcare organizations, legal organizations, I think you covered off on them as well.

Sponsor groups. So volunteer sponsor groups, a lot of times will subscribe to premium or use the essentials version if they have no budget as well. So like sponsor circles. I think those are the main things that we've seen.

Sounds like a broad array of users and that you're touching a lot of folks that need the support. Well, those are all of the questions that we have. I just want to really appreciate y'all for sharing this resource. And thank you again for being here.

Yeah, thanks so much for having us.

Awesome. So we're about to wrap up. uh, our presentation today. I have some closing reminders for folks, but I just, um, want to highlight that, um, you know, you've heard from the city, um, our collaborative of community partners that make up the language access network. And then we've highlighted a community resource that, um, the folks at Targimli actually filled out that form to request to speak at a forum and share their community-based resources. So just want to give a plug for anyone that has something similar in mind that you have an opportunity to do so. So let me just share my screen. I'll just plug that. opportunity to present at a future immigrant forum meeting here again. So folks feel like they can also be part of this space to highlight community resources and amplify any upcoming programs or services that might benefit the broader community. And yeah, I'll leave that here for a moment for folks to screen grab. And then I also just before we close, want to remind folks to join us for our next immigrant forum meeting on Wednesday, September 24th. Again, it'll be at 2 30 in the afternoon. If you're on the listserv, an email will come out in the coming weeks, but you can always find it in the event section of sf.gov slash immigrants. We hope more folks will join and continue to join as we host these for our meetings and share resources with each other. I'm seeing a question. Okay, I think I will pause on that question. Again, you can reach out to us at civic.engagement.sfgov.org if you have any questions or trouble accessing our listserv. Once again, I want to thank all of the speakers that joined us today, really value everyone's contributions to this meeting and information around language access. And thank you all for being in attendance and being representatives of the communities that you serve and bringing back important information to your communities so we can make sure these resources are accessible to everyone. Have a great rest of your afternoon and we'll see you at the next Immigrant Forum meeting. Thanks, everyone.