What special approaches are needed to outreach to low-literacy and limited-English-proficiency populations? (continued)

Train staff members and use residents from the neighborhood

Not everyone makes a good interviewer. Many do not feel comfortable talking with those who are not like themselves or in settings that are foreign to them. Others may lack patience or be judgmental. Before sending anyone out to meet the public, engage them in role playing and present them with a variety of scenarios in which they may be placed. Since opportunities must be seized when they occur, staff members need to be comfortable anywhere - on a front porch, in a back yard, under a clothesline, in an office, over a septic field, or in a Laundromat. Stress that everyone should be shown respect, addressed courteously, and treated with dignity.

...hire local residents

In Denver, CO, local residents were hired to interview people in their own community. This not only provided temporary jobs for many in the project corridor, but also eliminated the need to train outsiders. Nonresidents might ignore or miss the subliminal things that local residents
would know; such as, how to talk to people, what kind of respect to show, how to engage them, and how to make them feel comfortable. Local residents also were hired as interpreters for those communities where many did not speak English.

...use someone who knows the people and their culture

A staff secretary, who was a former welfare mother and single parent, was asked to go out into the field and conduct interviews in a low-literate community. She was very effective because she knew what the residents were going through, what was important to them, and the lingo that they spoke. Other team members were able to learn a great deal by watching her.

Local residents were hired to interview people in their own community.

...seek out the elders

Communities with low-literacy and limited-English-proficiency populations often do not have written histories because their residents could not write them. Instead, their histories are oral and kept alive by the community elders. Look for these elders, engage them in conversation, let them share their stories, and ask them to identify others who might be able to contribute to the community's history. This can be time consuming, but the information conveyed in their remembrances will assist in identifying current concerns, uncovering past discriminations, and revealing familial relationships.

...use staff that reflects others in the community

In Atlanta, GA, the project involved widening an interstate and reconstructing an interchange in a predominantly minority and elderly community that had been divided by the construction of the original interstate. The Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT) staff sent to conduct interviews with the residents included a mix of ages and races. After visiting a community center and attempting to interview some of the residents, it became apparent that the residents talked more openly with those closer to their ages and of their same race. They wanted to talk with someone who appreciated their life experiences, respected their status in the community, and understood what they had gone through the first time.

Ask the elders to share their stories of the community's history.