NAUGATUCK VALLEY HEALTH CARE INTERPRETATION PROJECT

Language should not create a barrier to good health. But for the growing Naugatuck Valley immigrant population, it's an obstacle that the Naugatuck Valley Project (NVP) is addressing and the Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health) is helping the NVP overcome.

The factors motivating community organizations to form the NVP are evident. With Naugatuck Valley's immigrant population growing dramatically during the last decade, Latino and Latina residents now make up:

25 percent of Waterbury, the Valley's largest city
5 percent of the Lower Valley communities

And many here do not speak English well enough to make the health care system work as effectively for them as those who do speak English.

This led Valley congregations, neighborhood organizations, labor unions, housing cooperatives and small businesses to create the NVP Health Care Interpretation Project and set several goals to help overcome this problem. Among them:

Research and document the extent of language-based health care barriers
Build relationships with valley health care providers
Develop a plan with hospitals for better interpretation services
Build regional and statewide support for $4.7 million reimbursement for medical interpretation in the Medicaid and Healthcare for UninSured Kids and Youth) (HUSKY) programs
Place face-to-face interpreters in all four valley hospitals
Develop training for medical interpreters

The NVP also had the support of an 18-month, $70,000 CHF grant awarded in 2005 to help fund this initiative, followed by a second grant of $150,000 for two years, through 2009.

"NVP leaders of the Interpretation Project are keeping the collective informed about every forward step taken," notes Carol Bukhart-Lyons, NVP staff director. This includes continuing to advocate for medical interpretation at the state level and the four valley hospitals, and teaching community members to advocate on their own behalf.

Through 2009, the NVP also plans broader community education through workshops in valley institutions on how to use the health care systems and how to ask for a medical interpreter.

Website: www.naugatuckvalleyproject.org