Engaging Communities in the 
Language Access Planning 
Process 

2007 Federal Interagency Conference 
on Limited English Proficiency 
March 15-16, 2007 


Translating Justice Project


- Consulting, training, and research 
services to improve accessibility of 
public safety and criminal justice 
services 

- Language access planning 

- Cultural competency 

- Research on police-immigrant 
relations 

- Police-community dialogue 


Why Involve Communities in the
Planning Process

- Understand needs of immigrants

- Evaluate accessibility of current 
services 

- Community-oriented policing 
 
- Good for improving police-
community relations 
 
- Community can be a resource 


How did we Involve Communities?

- Focus Groups 

- Interviews 

- Police-Community Joint Strategic 
Planning 


Who do you invite to the table?

- Engage a wide range of 
representatives that reflect diversity 
of the community 

- Make sure newer, less established 
communities represented 

- Religious organizations, social 
service organizations, cultural 
associations 

- Snowball technique 


Challenges

- Managing community expectations 
 
- Tapping into less well-established 
communities 

- Managing dissension among 
community representatives 

- Getting past the “voice boxes” 

- Getting buy-in when critical 
community organization is absent 

- Lack of community resources 


Lessons Learned

- This is hard! 

- Extensive research of community 

- Prepare community representatives 

- Everyone in the room needs a 
baseline of information 

- Clear expectations 

- No monolithic approach. Must 
create strategies specific to your 
jurisdiction