{"id":215651,"date":"2022-09-13T14:21:37","date_gmt":"2022-09-13T18:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicinput.com\/wp\/?p=215651"},"modified":"2025-12-11T07:34:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T23:34:57","slug":"community-engagement-and-language-accessibility-king-county-wa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/publicinput.com\/wp\/2022\/09\/13\/community-engagement-and-language-accessibility-king-county-wa\/","title":{"rendered":"Community Engagement and Language Accessibility (King County, WA)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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King County, Washington is home to over 2.2 million people, most living in Seattle or its neighboring suburbs. With one of the most diverse populations in the Pacific Northwest, King County includes one of the nation\u2019s highest concentrations of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Somoan, Somali, and Chinese communities among its total population.\u00a0 King County residents speak a large range of languages, which include Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese, and many more. In fact, nearly 30% of residents are speakers of a non-English language.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Speakers of a Non-English Language<\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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The Language Accessibility Challenge<\/h2>

Communities with highly diverse populations often struggle to ensure accessible and inclusive public engagement for everyone, particularly with regard to multilingual input and feedback.\u00a0 In this respect King County is no different. \u00a0 With a strong belief that all residents deserve to have a voice in their community, King County has committed to providing an accessible and equitable engagement community-wide.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

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To experiment with this, the County took the opportunity to take language accessibility challenges head on with their\u00a0Lake Swimming Beaches Survey initiative<\/a>.\u00a0 Famous for its temperate climate, residents and visitors of the County\u2019s recreation system take advantage of amenities year round.\u00a0 Using the Lake Swimming Beaches Survey, the County sought to gauge how often residents visit the County\u2019s lakes and how often beach closures, due to water quality, affect the visitor\u2019s experience. \u00a0 The primary goal of the initiative was to use the collected data to inform and improve the County\u2019s Beach Water Testing Project.<\/p>

Accessible Community Engagement Powered by PublicInput<\/h2>

Using the PublicInput community engagement software, King County launched its \u201cBeaches Survey\u201d to the community with language accessibility targeted at the following 10 languages:\u00a0

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  1. Amharic<\/li>
  2. Chinese<\/li>
  3. English<\/li>
  4. Korean<\/li>
  5. Punjabi<\/li>
  6. Russian<\/li>
  7. Somali<\/li>
  8. Spanish<\/li>
  9. Ukrainian<\/li>
  10. Vietnamese<\/li><\/ol>

    The County created individualized survey segments and unique URLs for each of the translated surveys, which allowed them to track participants and their language preferences for future outreach.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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    Above Image Caption:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

    The Custom Links feature allows project managers track participants by language.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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    Above Image Caption:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

    The PublicInput\u00a0CRM<\/a>\u00a0automatically captures participants using custom links in an associated segment for future outreach and communication purposes.<\/p><\/blockquote>

    The Outcome<\/b><\/h2>

    Despite the identified language accessibility challenges, the Lake Swimming Beaches Survey initiative was successful in reaching over 1,400 residents. The data collected was used to inform and improve the County\u2019s Beach Water Testing Project.

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    Using PublicInput, the King County team was able to meet the needs of a diverse population while informing a plan to protect public health by providing timely and accessible water quality information to the public. Project benefits include the ability for the team to:

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