Talbot County Has Some Work to Do with CLAS

It is understandable that very few people living in Talbot County would know or care about CLAS Standards, but behind this bureaucratic acronym are some fairly reasonable guidelines for culturally and linguistically appropriate services (hence CLAS) in any particular community. On other words, how do community agencies and retail businesses address the increasingly common challenge of accommodating residents who do not use English as the primary language?

Only as recently as 2002, it would not have been surprising that particular concern was appropriately not on the front burner for Talbot County. With less than 200 in the community speaking English as a second language, issues related to translation services was mostly found in the country’s big urban centers. But fast-forward to 2014, and one sees immigration growth hitting over 200 percent in those fourteen years, or some 4,000 new residents of the county.

And that growth can be found in our public schools, but also in health services, pharmacies and urgent care clinics throughout Talbot, where the need to be understood can make the difference between life and death.

The Center for Public Service Communications (CPSC) in Claiborne was interested enough in CLAS standards that it commissioned a preliminary research study this summer, to have a better understanding the challenges of accessing health services for those not speaking English in Talbot. In this case, they were eager to look closely at the experiences of county residents, elected leaders, health services providers as well as local pharmacies, from Target, Walmart to Hill’s in downtown Easton.

CPSC’s president John Scott recruited Wittman St. Michaels resident and Guilford College undergraduate, Michaela Beggins, to conduct the study, and the Spy caught up with her before leaving to return to school to discuss some of these important findings.

For additional information about the study, contact John Scott at [email protected].