LANGUAGE ACCESS

The City is committed to ensuring that language access services are implemented in a cost effective and efficient manner and will continue taking steps to provide oral and written language services to assist LEP individuals to communicate effectively and provide LEP individuals with meaningful access to, and an equal opportunity to participate fully in, the services, activities and programs administered by the City.

Policy

In April 2015, the City of Long Beach City Council established the City's Language Access Policy to ensure the provision of appropriate translation and interpretation services for Long Beach residents with limited English proficiency. This ensures that documents, messages, apps, and websites containing vital information will be translated and made available to residents who need that information. The City contracted with LanguageLine Solutions, a worldwide leader in the language services industry, to provide live, on-demand translations in more than 200 languages and allow the City’s Emergency Notification System allows users to receive emergency alerts in Spanish. 

This service is provided by phone directly connected to the LanguageLine call center. Through a special language identification card supplied with the phone, LEP persons will be able to point out their language, allowing for the officer and individual in need to receive on-the-spot, high quality interpretation service in the field, 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year.

The City of Long Beach Police Department, in cooperation with the New York State Office of the Attorney General (OAG), was the first department to utilize the service to help ensure that persons of LEP are able to make use of the full range of services provided by LBPD, including the ability for officers to use LanguageLine Solutions, (the vendor used by the City of Long Beach for live, on-demand translations in more than 200 languages). The addition of this service is now available across all city departments. Documents and messages containing vital information will be translated and made available to residents who need that information. 

Website & Smartphone App

In terms of technology, the City’s website is also now easily translated into numerous languages at the click of a mouse. The Long Beach Response mobile app can also be translated to the default language set on an individual’s device. For example, a resident can report an issue in Spanish and the City will receive it translated into English, and the City’s response will be translated back into Spanish.