The State of Illinois' Immigrant Integration Initiative

Request

Millennia was asked to assist on several projects related to increasing language access to state services while also advancing cultural competence. We worked with both the Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Office of New Americans Policy and Advocacy to assess the current situation and develop concrete strategies for the future as part of the New American's Executive Order launched in 2005.

Issue

Limited English proficiency can be a barrier to critical services and information that enable immigrants to become successful and productive members of the society. State officials wanted to create a language access plan accompanied by policies and practices that would help them meet established goals.

Millennia’s Approach

Millennia worked closely with health and human service professionals and immigrant and refugee leadership to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the State's current approaches to language access and cultural competence, completing an in-depth assessment of six divisions of the Illinois Department of Human Services as part of a privately funded team of researchers. Later, Millennia developed a language access plan for DHS as well as helping to design and launch the Illinois Welcoming Center. We worked under the direction of the Office of New Americans Policy and Advocacy across all state agencies to develop the Language and Cultural Competence Guidelines for State of Illinois Subcontractors and Vendors.

Client Benefit

Millennia was actively engaged in several projects leading up to the launch of the New Americans Executive Order Project. Our deep knowledge of immigrant policy combined with our hands-on experience implementing a wide range of planning and program design assignments in immigrant and refugee communities meant that we could step in with senior level expertise and respond to an array of demands quickly and flexibly.

The State of Illinois' Immigrant Integration Initiative is an example of Millennia's Program Development and Research and Policy Analysis services.