Grantee Approaches to Developing Spanish Materials

---

Early in the project, grantees began the process of improving their Spanish language materials by conducting an internal audit of all written materials that were being used at their sites. Most grantees found that the development of Spanish materials was haphazard and not well coordinated at their sites. In most cases, there was no central repository for Spanish materials and no single decision maker. The look, quality, and availability of the materials that had been developed reflected the lack of planning and forethought. As with many aspects of dealing with language barriers, demand for Spanish written materials also exceeded the resources available. The internal audit and gap analysis helped sites prioritize which materials were needed most and begin to develop organizational structure to guide decision making and expenditures. There were three important outcomes of the gap analysis:

1. The development of policies outlining who was responsible for decision making regarding Spanish materials, and how these materials would be prioritized and paid for;

2. Poor quality materials were taken out of circulation; and

3. Materials available were centralized (sometimes electronically) so that materials that had already been developed were easily accessible throughout the organization.

Though grantees found that translation is not always the optimum choice for the development of Spanish materials (see To Translate Or Not to Translate?), in cases where translation is appropriate, choosing a translator becomes the next challenge. In the Resource Guide that will be available on this site in the fall of 2005, we will distill lessons learned by the grantees about contracting with translators. In the meantime, please feel free to review the guidelines developed by the Carolina Association of Translators and Interpreters (CATI). These guidelines were developed in conjunction with one of the Hablamos Juntos grantees, MedVerse.

The ultimate goal of grantees is to develop materials that communicate clearly across different cultural backgrounds, education levels, and communication styles. To evaluate these materials, grantees are using a variety of methods, and are specifically testing an evaluation tool developed by a team of consultants for Hablamos Juntos. The hope is that this tool may help grantees to measure the usability and cultural appropriateness of new Spanish language materials. Materials developed by Hablamos Juntos grantees will be available to all health care facilities to use or adapt.

---