Crossroads Charlotte
We would like to provide you advance notice of an important communications initiative being undertaken by Mecklenburg County. On October 24, we will join numerous other organizations in announcing this initiative as part of the community’s Crossroads Charlotte effort.
Crossroads Charlotte is a collaboration involving more than 35 organizations in the Charlotte area, including Mecklenburg County government. Each organization participating is implementing various initiatives aimed at building our community’s access, inclusion and equity for all residents. Background on Crossroads Charlotte is available at
www.crossroadscharlotte.org
The goal of Crossroads Charlotte is consistent with the Board of County Commissioners’ vision for this community, and consistent with our Diversity Management Plan’s goals for becoming a model diverse organization. Specifically, Mecklenburg County’s Crossroads Charlotte initiative is linked closely with two key desired results on our Community and Corporate Scorecard:
- Increase public awareness of the County’s responsibilities, services and results
- Increase customer satisfaction with no racial/ethnic disparity in satisfaction
Mecklenburg County’s part in the Crossroads Charlotte initiative is to increase awareness of and access to County services among residents who do not speak English or have limited English speaking proficiency.
The Public Service & Information Department (PS&I) is serving as the County’s lead agency in implementing this initiative since it is primarily a public awareness and marketing effort. This initial phase will focus on residents whose primary language is Spanish. Subsequent outreach will expand to other languages also present and growing within Mecklenburg County.
The County’s initiative calls for PS&I to incorporate the following activities into its regular array of targeted outreach communications services:
• A “Welcome to Mecklenburg County” brochure published in Spanish will highlight the most-requested County services and a list of frequently called phone numbers.
• New web pages in Spanish, accessed through ayuda.charmeck.org, will provide links to select services. Pages already translated into Spanish will be linked from ayuda (which means “help” in Spanish). Each County department will have a Spanish language home page that includes its address and phone number. Additional translations will occur over time, depending on the availability of resources.
- The County’s Spanish language health and safety TV show “Salud y Vida” has been expanded to include stories about all County services. Those departments with bilingual staff are encouraged to take advantage of this public forum to help increase awareness of the services you provide, particularly targeting Spanish-speaking residents.
- PS&I also will broaden and enhance the information provided to the 311 city/county customer service center, where a team of bilingual customer service specialists are available to respond to customer inquiries.
Chairman Roberts has agreed to announce the County’s initiative at the October 24 gathering. Board members are invited to join the chairman and County staff at the public announcement, which begins at 11:30 a.m. on October 24 at University Park Baptist Church, 6029 Beatties Ford Road.
--Harry L. Jones, Sr., County Manager
