CLAS: NATIONAL CULTURALLY AND LINGUISTICALLY APPROPRIATE SERVICE STANDARDS 

The US Dept. of Health and Human Services has developed national standards to advance health equity, improve quality, and help eliminate health care disparities.

Principal Standard
Principle 1:

Provide effective, equitable, understandable, and respectful quality care and services that are responsive to diverse cultural health beliefs and practices, preferred languages, health literacy, and other communication needs.

Governance, Leadership and Workforce
Principle 2:

Advance and sustain organizational governance and leadership that promotes CLAS and health equity through policy, practices, and allocated resources.

Principle 3: 
Recruit, promote, and support a culturally and linguistically diverse governance, leadership, and workforce that are responsive to the population in the service area.

Principle 4:
Educate and train governance, leadership, and workforce in culturally and linguistically appropriate policies and practices on an ongoing basis.

Communication and Language Assistance
Principle 5:

Offer language assistance to individuals who have limited English proficiency and/or other communication needs, at no cost to them, to facilitate timely access to all health care and services.

Principle 6: 
Inform all individuals of the availability of language assistance services clearly and in their preferred language, verbally and in writing.

Principle 7:
Ensure the competence of individuals providing language assistance, recognizing that the use of untrained individuals and/or minors as interpreters should be avoided.

Principle 8:

Provide easy-to-understand print and multimedia materials and signage in the languages commonly used by the populations in the service area.

Engagement, Continuous Improvement, and Accountability

Principle 9:

Establish culturally and linguistically appropriate goals, policies, and management accountability, and infuse them throughout the organization's planning and operations.

Principle 10:

Conduct ongoing assessments of the organization's CLAS-related activities and integrate CLAS-related measures into measurement and continuous quality improvement activities.

Principle 11:

Collect and maintain accurate and reliable demographic data to monitor and evaluate the impact of CLAS on health equity and outcomes and to inform service delivery.

Principle 12:

Conduct regular assessments of community health assets and needs and use the results to plan and implement services that respond to the cultural and linguistic diversity of populations in the service area.

Principle 13:

Partner with the community to design, implement, and evaluate policies, practices, and services to ensure cultural and linguistic appropriateness.

Principle 14:

Create conflict and grievance resolution processes that are culturally and linguistically appropriate to identify, prevent, and resolve conflicts or complaints.

Principle 15:

Communicate the organization's progress in implementing and sustaining CLAS to all stakeholders, constituents, and the general public.

Resource: https://www.thinkculturalhealth.hhs.gov/clas/standards

SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE

Read through the CLAS standards and think about what you have observed in your fieldwork site. In order to respond to the prompts below, it may be necessary to discuss this topic with your supervisor, an administrator or other resource in the organization or department to get a complete picture of how these standards are being implemented.

• Identify 2 standards you feel you can comment on based on clinical experience.

• Discuss examples of how the organization you are doing fieldwork in addresses the standard. 

• Give examples of how the OT or rehab department addresses the standard.