Language Justice: Enhancing Consistent Language Access to the Department of Children and Family Services’ Asian Pacific Program
Recommendation as submitted by Supervisor Hahn:
Direct the Department of Children and Family Services, in collaboration with the Office of Immigrant Affairs and the Office of Child, Youth, and Family Wellbeing, to report back, to the Board, in writing, in 90 days on the following:
The current languages and language services provided by the Asian Pacific Program section, including data-driven justifications of the selected languages currently being provided, if languages are outside of the threshold criteria;
Operating hours and policy and protocol considerations made for after-hour calls;
DCFS Hotline policy and protocol considerations to identify Language Other Than English (LOTE) callers and clients to provide consistent access to language support, resources, and services; and
An accounting of staff dedicated to the APP section, including any outside contractors or consultants; and inventory of bilingual and multilingual staff within the department, including their spoken and written capacities, as legally allowed.
All existing departmental protocols and policies for language service provisions, including but not limited to:
Status and current roles and duties of any and all individuals who are responsible for coordinating and/or overseeing the provision of meaningful language services, e.g., language access liaison or other staff delegated to perform these tasks; screening, evaluation protocols;
Procedures and process for when DCFS receives language service requests that the APP section cannot fulfill;
Current screening and evaluation protocols for translators and interpreters to provide services to DCFS; and
Current training provided on the DCFS Language Access Plan to APP section staff and all DCFS staff who are client-facing.
Assessment and recommendations on how multilingual communications are meaningfully provided in languages that are emerging, have been historically isolated, are of lesser diffusion, and/or do not have a commonly used written format.
Assessment and recommendations on how multilingual communications are meaningfully provided during urgent and emergency response situations.
The feasibility, including the amount of funding needed, of expanding the number of languages served by the APP section. The feasibility report should use the following data points in determining additional languages needed:
The most recent census data from the United States Census Bureau, or recent data from any other relevant databases, including but not limited to, any of the following:
English Learner Data, available on the DataQuest reporting system, or any other relevant data provided by the California Department of Education;
Any relevant data provided by the State Department of Finance;
Community-level input from various mechanisms, including evidence-based data provided by community-based organizations or advocates , focus groups, roundtables, and advisory bodies, especially during times of emergencies; and
Any relevant factors other than those described in this section, including levels of linguistic isolation and percentages of limited English proficiency within each language group.
A progress report on the Department’s implementation of its Language Access Plan, to include status on trainings, briefings, and updates to policies and procedures.
Assessment and recommendations on safeguards that will be developed and implemented around the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine translation, utilizing the State of California Guidelines for Evaluating Impacts of Generative AI on Vulnerable and Marginalized Communities (GenAI Equity Guidelines) (December 2024).
Safeguards must include mechanisms for accountability, qualified human review, monitoring and oversight, ensuring no adverse impact on communities with protected characteristics, i.e., national origin and ethnic group identification , and transparency and notice to linguistically marginalized communities.
Direct the Department of Children and Family Services to report back, in writing, within 90 days on the following, with an emphasis on individuals who are Language Other than English (LOTE) speakers:
The current departmental policy on Failure to Protect and ensuring cultural competency and sensitivity are incorporated in the implementation of it;
The existing resources provided to domestic violence survivors with open DCFS cases, including in-language system navigation; and
The training that all client-facing DCFS staff, including investigators and social workers, with specific emphasis on the APP section, receive on domestic violence, along with evaluations and recommendations on the need to expand the trainings to be more culturally competent.
Updated 4.29.2026 8:11:52 PM UTC