Think back, if you will, to the earliest days of the shutdown during the pandemic when information about our health and safety was confusing at best and terrifying at worst. Now imagine being unable to understand any of the information coming at you because of a language barrier.
That was precisely the case at the start of COVID-19 when two indomitable women met the crisis head-on. In April 2020, Sheryl Taylor, the equity and access coordinator at MVRHS, and Leah Palmer, the English language learner director for the Martha’s Vineyard Public Schools, initiated what would become the Communication Ambassador Partnership (CAP) of Martha’s Vineyard.
“After the full shutdown happened, I was not getting any sleep, because I was so worried about the families I work with every day not getting critical health and safety information in a language and a manner they would understand,” Palmer recalls. Taylor says, “I think there has been a longer-standing need for language access on the island, but COVID highlighted that fact.”
Taylor and Palmer met with others in the community to discuss how to start getting critical information out in Brazilian Portuguese. They applied for an emergency grant from the Permanent Endowment Fund for Martha’s Vineyard to provide a community interpreting course, recruited candidates, and trained 10 interpreters. “One of the critical needs was that the contact tracers [people who communicate with individuals in a community who may have been exposed to COVID] were all English-speaking at that time, so the interpreters started working with them, and some became contact tracers,” Palmer remembers.
CAP also organized a medical interpreting course to train more people. Palmer adds, “Meanwhile, we facilitated forums with the hospital for the community, and provided that in Portuguese. We recorded those and sent them out to the community through social media and WhatsApp.” Today, CAP provides in-person interpretation for the hospital during peak times. The hospital has hired one CAP interpreter as an employee.
When vaccines became available, CAP started running the “VAX bus” in partnership with the schools and health agents, and has continued to do so: “We are not just about all-language access, but access in general. We have been able to get many of our immigrant community members vaccinated.” As of October 2024, the VAX bus has administrated 5,772 COVID-19 and flu vaccines. “We’re just educators trying to figure out this public health aspect. We’ve learned a ton with the support of the public health community on the Island,” comments Palmer.
Now a nonprofit, CAP has grown in its efforts to create systemic change in providing language access. To help build a workforce, it developed the Stepping Stones mentorship program, which matches 11th- and 12th-grade immigrant and first-generation students with mentors. CAP provides trainings for the mentors, parents of the students, guidance counselors, and school staff who work with the young people, to support them in college and career planning.
Likewise, there is the Language Ambassador Community Interpreting course for 11th and 12th graders at the high school. Last year, 15 students completed an interpreting course, which provides them with a certificate so they can get jobs as community interpreters when they graduate. Through a grant from the hospital, they can also take a medical interpreting course.
CAP continues to evolve in providing language access to all residents of Martha’s Vineyard. For example, it works with interpreters to facilitate effective communication in various settings, including clinical, educational, and community, both in person and remotely.
CAP also consults with organizations that want to build a bridge to multilingual learners. It also works with translators to support individuals, healthcare, social services, and governmental, educational, and corporate institutions.
With about 40 interpreters on its roster, CAP continues to develop the language access workforce. It partners with ACE MV to run interpreting courses and offer additional advanced training. Palmer says, “An important premise for CAP is to help the community understand the professionalism in language access, and ensure that people recognize that just because someone is bilingual doesn’t mean they can be an interpreter or a translator. A lot of training and a specific skill set are needed to provide those services. We take professionalism very seriously, and ensure that everyone is well-trained and well-supported in the process.”
Over the years, CAP has received funding from the Permanent Endowment Fund for Martha’s Vineyard, Martha’s Vineyard Community Foundation, Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship, the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, and Mass Brigham General, among others, allowing it to grow. Reflecting on how far CAP has come, Palmer says, “It is amazing, because we moved so fast in so many ways and got so much done, thanks to the collaboration with everyone. We couldn’t do it without the community stepping up.”
For more information, visit capmvy.com.
