Dialing Into the Limited English Speaking Community: How Emergency Communications Professionals Can Benefit from Multilingual Public Education

Informing LEP populations about 9-1-1 language capabilities leads to better response times and more positive outcomes for first responders.

Emergency Number Professional Magazine (ENPM) - September, 2007 Issue - By Greg Holt, Government Markets Manager, Language Line Services

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FOR EMERGENCY SERVICES, the challenges created by an increasingly diverse population are well-known. With more than 176 different languages spoken in the U.S., and with 20 percent of the country speaking a language other than English, 9-1-1 dispatchers and first responders are at the epicenter of a linguistic transformation that has redefined operational protocol.

9-1-1 centers are adopting new procedures to handle calls from limited English speakers, which range from using bilingual staff and professional interpretation services to less reliable alternatives, like borrowing resources in the community to find the right language needed. While agencies have made great strides to be able to handle emergencies from Limited English Proficient (LEP) callers, many people remain unaware that help in their own language is only a 9-1-1 call away. This lack of awareness is creating new obstacles for emergency communicators and for public safety in general.

The fact is, the language barrier in public safety has two aspects. On one side, emergency communications centers face a growing influx of calls in multiple languages, creating huge communications challenges and potential conflicts. On the other side, LEP persons who need—or may one day need—emergency services face an intensifying cultural divide.

Mounting animosity in some communities creates dangerous misimpressions that government services are really not meant for everyone (and if they are, that services are only available in English). The end result is that 9-1-1 centers, and other emergency organizations, are tested not only by the LEP calls that are made, but by the calls that never arrive, or arrive too late, and the situations that ensue.

A successful approach to the overall language challenge requires a solution in place for emergency dispatch, incorporating bilingual staffing and professional language interpretation services, as well as public outreach and proactive communication with the LEP community.

It only makes sense that if a community is expending funds to provide multilingual 9-1-1 services, it should make sure that these services are being used correctly, and to the fullest extent. After all, every call that is made to an emergency communications center in error, and every emergency response that is unnecessarily delayed, has a measurable toll on a community’s limited resources, both in financial and human terms.

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