“Government Communications in a Multicultural, Multilingual World”
Wednesday, February 16, 2005, 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dakota County CDA office, 1228 Town Centre Drive, Eagan

An Overview of Communicating with New Americans: Providing Limited English Proficiency (LEP) people access to services and benefits provided by the state, counties and various other service providers is a unique communications challenge. John Morrison, manager of the LEP program for the Minnesota Department of Human Services, presented an overview of the department’s experience over the last few years including legal background, history, strategies, problems, data gathering and decision-making. He provided lessons and techniques learned when communicating with new Americans.

Making Connections with Diverse Populations – Burnsville's Building Block Approach: Communication with residents who have limited English skills requires creativity, a sense of humor and time. Marcia Honold, neighborhood and volunteer services coordinator for the City of Burnsville, presented practical and fairly inexpensive approaches the city has used to improve relationships with immigrant and refugee residents.

Emergency and Community Health Outreach (ECHO) Project: Lillian McDonald, public information officer for St. Paul-Ramsey County Department of Public Health, spoke about reaching limited English speaking populations with translated emergency public health information through project ECHO on television, Web and other communication resources.

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