10.23.20 Facebook LIVE Briefing CTAP

The County of Santa Clara
October 23, 2020
Live Stream - Briefing Live stream
10:00 AM

Ricardo Romero Morales: Good morning everyone. thank you so much for tuning in today here at uh Facebook live, live with the county of Santa Clara today is Friday, October 23rd and today we continue to do our segments for binational health week I'm going to be removing my face covering so that way our ASL interpreters understand what i'm saying and so you can also understand better understand what i'm saying today today we have our guest Carmen Garcia who is an outreach specialist from the California telephone program and today we'll be talking about the California Telephone Access Program also known as CTAP um but before we get started we want to give you an update in the number of cases that we have here in Santa Clara county with COVID-19. as you can see there are appearing under our screen right now so you can go ahead and take a look at where we are as in yesterday our numbers for today will be updated around two o'clock and please visit our website so to check out our dashboards as well so as we were talking we continue to do this segments on Fridays for by national health week Binational Health Week happens every month every October and it's a month-long series of events to bring services to our community our community here in Santa Clara County especially to a Latinx community and we're talking about any services such as health care access to health care testing especially around COVID-19 testing flu shots and other health screenings and all of these efforts are thanks to our community partners volunteers and other federal agencies so let's go ahead and get started with the with the segment so thank you for accepting our invitation to share important information with our community, Carmen. Carmen is from the California telephone access program and will tell us about this program's office the resources available and as well as how our community can benefit from their services. good morning, Carmen.

Carmen Garcia: Good morning, Ricardo, and thank you so much for having me I've been looking forward to uh to this interview with you

RRM:amazing thank you for being here uh tell us more about what is the California telephone access program or also known as CTAPand what are some of the main services that your program offers?

CG: so CTAP for sure is a state-funded program we're actually part of the public utilities commission and we provide free specialized telephones for people that have a hard time using a standard telephone

RRM: awesome so talk to us about the importance of being a partner during Binational Health Week and especially right now during COVID-19.

CG: well um like i said thank you so much for having us on because our um our position of outreach specialist is to be out there to let the community know about the program and the amazing services that we have but because of COVID we're not able to be out there in person and this facebook live opportunity is exactly what we need to continue to be able to to uh to do the outreach

RRM: yes no thank you so much for accepting our invitation as many of you know uh we have been trying to work with our community partners and also provide an opportunity for them to bring those services to you via our facebook lives here at the county uh so carmen can you please talk to us about how has COVID-19 impacted your services? and are you still providing services? and if so how is it different than before?

CG: sure so in regards to my position again i'm not able to be out there in person so we are providing online presentations about the program and those have been tremendously helpful and then also in regards to the program in general we have never closed because we are an essential service provider so our offices have maintained open however we do have quite a bit of safety measures in place so for example we only allow two customers at a time so that they can ensure that they're going to be safe when they come in. we've got the shields in place the masks in place, and then also we do have what we call field advisors and those are our colleagues that go out into the homes when someone needs assistance maybe setting up their telephone or programming it once they get it again we go out into the homes to help with that but because of COVID we haven't been able to do that because we want to keep everybody safe most recently what we started to do was um going back to those visits but on a very limited basis and only for those most vulnerable customers so again we want to make sure that they are able to stay connected using their telephones and that is why we've we've gradually are allowing those home visits again.

RRM: wonderful you guys are doing a lot of work and i know it does take a lot to adapt to a new normal and i'm glad that we continue and you're also continuing to provide services to our community especially with the work that you do providing devices to people to better have access to to healthcare to their doctors and to meet their needs. now earlier you mentioned that the that the program is funded through the State can you talk a little bit about? how the program is funded and if there are any income restrictions? or age restrictions and who can apply?

CG: definitely so yes we're a state-funded program and the funds come from you and i and anybody else that pays a phone bill so if you look at your phone bill next time you get it there's several surcharges that are listed on there and the one that funds our program in particular is the california relay service and telecommunication device is fun so if you look at it you'll notice that there's you know three four five cents that are contributed to our program so that if and when you need one of our specialized phones they're available to you and in regards to the requirements we are fortunate that for this particular state program there are no age or income requirements you probably know of children or young adults that have mobility or hearing problems so for that reason there are no age no age requirements.

RRM: great and is there an income requirement?

CG: no income requirement either the only requirements are that you live in California and that's because californians fund the program you have to have telephone service established already whether it's the landline or the cell phone and then your doctor does have to complete an application.

RRM: wonderful wonderful thank you so much for that information so what is uh CTAP's uh primary purpose or goal?

CG: our goal is to ensure that everybody can stay connected especially during this this pandemic it's i think we've all recognized that our telephones are a lot more important right that's what we're relying on since we can't go out and visit family or you know we prefer to do everything over the phone as much as possible and so if you have a hearing loss we want to make sure that you can still call and request your your refill if you have a hard time seeing small numbers on your phone we want to make sure that you can still call your friends your family your neighbors to check on them or for them to check on you so that's our goal is regardless of the type of difficulty you have whether it's hearing vision mobility memory or speech we want you to have a telephone that you can use on a regular basis. RRM: yes absolutely especially right now as you mentioned with COVID-19 pandemic going on and many other uh events that are happening fires psps a lot of things that have been happening in this year 2020 so it is important to be able to be to stay connected to be able to reach out to our neighbors to reach out to our family members to our doctors to other services that we might need in case of an emergency now uh CG: exactly.

RRM: yes so i i was i was fascinated when i when i learned about all the different devices that you offer so we'll we'll start with the first one which is the uh the specialized devices for people with difficulty hearing can you tell us a little bit more about that and how they work?

CG: sure and let me just um start off by giving you an example my mom lives in the same town but she's out in the country and like most of us will do we call our parents to check on them right especially if they're elderly and often times she wasn't picking up her phone and so there we go rushing to her home to make sure she's okay and then we find out that the problem is that she can't hear her phone ring because she she has a hearing loss and so for uh for someone like my mom our program has amplified telephones here's an example of one so our telephones are going to ring much louder so now my mom can hear her phone ring and in addition this one here has a flashing light so it's going to catch her attention when it's ringing and not only are our phones louder in regards to the ring but the incoming voices can be up to five times louder than on a standard phone and they have tone control which is going to help with clarity people that have a hearing loss not only struggle with volume but with clarity as well so our telephones are going to help you stay connected and your conversations are going to be not just louder but clear.

RRM: great awesome yes you know as we continue with working here at the emergency operations center especially with uh reaching out to our community it's important to also keep in mind that we are such a diverse community that it's not only about race and ethnicity but there's also a lot of people that we have with disabilities so having these services definitely helps to reach out to all of our community and provide those services now can you please talk to us a little bit about uh those specialized devices for people with difficulty moving

CG: definitely our program has cordless phones i'll show you one here here's a cordless phone that is going to help someone that has a hard time getting around maybe they use a cane a walker or a wheelchair so having a cordless phone will be convenient because you can keep the handset next to you at all times you're not having to rush to a telephone with the cord so that you're not missing your phone calls if you you know if you need to make a a telephone call urgently you've got your handset right next to you so again we've got the cordless phones but there is another one you'll notice this one doesn't even have a handset oh wow so this one is this one is designed for someone that has more of a severe mobility difficulty maybe someone is paralyzed you know they're bedridden and they can still make and receive their their own phone calls without having to rely on a handset this telephone is remotely operated so we match you up with some type of a device that you can use um maybe all you can do is blow into a switch and that would activate this telephone so that you can make and receive your own phone calls so imagine how the quality of life of a person that is paralyzed would improve if you can just be independently making and receiving your own phone calls?

RRM: yes wow i continue to be surprised with all the technology that we have so now speaking about other disabilities what what do we have to offer for people who have difficulty speaking? do you have any devices for for people ...

CG: yes for for those that have a difficulty speaking we have an array of devices and telephones so let's say maybe you have a a stuttering problem we have anti-stuttering devices and um so that's a device that we teach you how to use um and you know it's it's a little complicated but basically it reduces the um stuttering to like seven seventy to ninety percent um so you're not you're not stuttering as much and then there's people that um you know have a an artificial larynx um that we can provide them if they don't have a voice box um then there's some people that just have a really soft voice for whatever reason so we have a voice amplifier that we provide and then some of our cordless phones will also with the push of a button will make your voice louder so it just depends on what is going on with your speech and we we have a a variety of devices and telephones

RRM: amazing thank you so much for sharing those and what about for people who have a difficulty learning or remembering i know sometimes you know we now that we have cell phones even even uh even myself i tend to forget people's phone numbers but i'm sure for example my mom she only memorizes my sister and my phone number but she doesn't remember anybody else's phone number do we have any devices?

CG: we do and you guys must be her favorites so um here's a telephone and there might be a little bit of a glare but if you'll notice it's got the nice big numbers but it also has a photo feature wow so you can insert pictures of people that you call often so that you don't have to remember their phone numbers anymore all you have to do is pick up the handset and press the picture of the person you want to call this is more like a speed dial almost right yes it's a speed dial but with pictures for people that have a hard time remembering because um you know if you think about it maybe they just remember your face if they're getting um to a point where their their memory is really failing them um so with the push of a button there they can be calling you and if those uh pictures are a little too small for someone we have another device um it's called a photogra dialer and it holds wallet size picture so it'll be a lot easier to see

RRM: excellent so uh for those phones do we have to take the pictures and then put them in there or  ... (Carmen nods, "yes.") perfect that's like a perfect uh arts and crafts activity that we can do with our loved ones i love it! CG: exactly that's the fun part is collecting the pictures wow and um so nowadays uh i know for example going back to my mom uh is there uh she doesn't have a house phone she has a cell phone do you have any accessories or any uh devices that can help her with having a cell phone?

CG: yes we've come across that um in the last few years is that many people are getting rid of their landlines either because they feel they don't need it anymore or you know maybe we're on a budget and we you know it's either the landline or the cell phone right so for those that are only using landlines now i'm going to go back to the cordless phone i showed you this this looks like a regular cordless phone for a landline and it could be but on the very bottom it'll tell you that it's bluetooth compatible so that means that your mom can connect her cell phone to this one via bluetooth so that when she's at home and you call her she can pick up her phone call on this piece because maybe she left her cell phone in the bathroom somewhere or the bedroom and so the cordless handset is going to ring when you're calling her on her cell phone she can choose which one she picks up from her her cell phone or this one and the benefit of picking up the call on this one is that it's going to be amplified if she needs that and it just might be easier for her to dial on this one versus the cell phone too so that's one option um the other option say she has her cell phone and has a hard time hearing but she wants an amplifier when she's out and about not just when she's at home so this little handset here will ring when you call her cell phone and she can pick up on this piece

RRM: wow and it looks just like a cell phone right so people don't have to feel uh weird or out of place by picking up a huge device so i'm glad that this has that look and feel of a natural cell phone CG: exactly RRM: well you you guys offer a great variety of devices and support for our community thank you for that our community truly needs them and now do you offer all these services in in other languages?

CG: um we do i mentioned um that we have an application that the doctor has to complete and i'm trying to figure it out right now here it is so um there's applications that um that we offer because your doctor has to verify on the back section that you have one of those difficulties hearing vision mobility memory or speech and these applications are available in various language english spanish hmong vietnamese russian and i think i'm forgetting a couple of other languages but you can always call our contact center and you can ask for an interpreter

RRM: excellent wow thank you so much for that and earlier you mentioned a program you were talking about the California Relay Service can you expand a little bit more about what that is?

CG: definitely so when this program started over 40 years ago the goal was to ensure that the deaf could communicate the deaf needed a specialized equipment a tty or a teletypewriter to communicate and in order to communicate using the tty that user is typing what they want to say but there has to be an operator voicing to their caller so that they can communicate with someone else that does not have a tty and so that operator assistance to facilitate those communications that is the california relay service and it's a a a completely free service that is available 24 7.

RRM: amazing thank you so much and uh tell us more about the speech to speech uh services that you offer

CG: so let's say someone has a hard time speaking clearly enough to be understood and i'll give you an example as well my brother-in-law was only 30 when he ended up having cancer in his tongue and so he had to have part of his tongue removed to take care of that cancer and he ended up with the speech impairment and though he um he went to speech therapy sometimes it was very really difficult to understand him especially over the phone you know in person we use hand gestures and body language but over the phone it was quite challenging and so had we known about this service because this was before i started working for the program had we known about speech to speech he could have had a specially trained operator on the line with him so that he was able to communicate independently so similar to the the California Relay Service speech to speech is a service that provides facilitation um so that people with speech problems can communicate over the phone

RRM: great thank you so much for all the services that that you offer but just to summarize everything that we have covered today, uh so the services that you offer are free and definitely people can reach out to to you and to everybody else to your program to get more information about this and also the requirements are that they need to complete an application and this application has to be signed by a doctor just to confirm that there is an impairment and the need of these devices and then you have devices for difficulty hearing difficulty moving difficulty speaking difficulty learning or remembering and as well as speech to speech services that you offer and you also have devices that can help any mobile devices users wow so this is this is amazing and this is great information for our community, and you who's watching us at home if you don't need the information at this time maybe you know somebody who can benefit from this services so we do ask you to please spread the word and talk about the services as well you don't have to memorize everything you can just reference back to this video and you can definitely connect somebody else to the services, and before we go uh how can our community reach out to you? wow we we have some phone numbers that we received ahead of time so we're they're going to be coming out on your screen right now and uh can you tell us a little bit more about how can people reach out to you? in terms of like the times uh the the languages that they're offered and if there's a different number for each region

CG: of course so we have various offices throughout the state northern california southern california i'm in the central valley we have an office in fresno so if you go on to our website californiaphones.org you will see a listing of the offices that we have you can also call our 800 number to request an application but you can also download it from our website you can download the application from the website if you'd like to again we there's different phone numbers for different languages so let's say you speak Spanish you can call our Spanish line and all those phone numbers will be listed on our website I would also recommend that you call the 800 number before you visit one of our offices just because um like you mentioned there's been fires um the air quality has been pretty bad in some areas of the state so we always recommend that you call before you visit um so that you know of any restrictions any special attention that you might need to take in regards to mass how many people are allowed and our hours of operation as well

RRM: wonderful thank you so much for all of the services that you provide again and thank you everybody for watching and thank you for joining us uh and so just remember that we're still in Binational Health week it's still october we still have one more friday coming up and next friday we'll be talking about all of the great events that happen in the month of october we will have the Mexican Consulate here with us uh to talk about their events as well so thank you everybody for watching and thank you for continuing to keep your social distance wearing your face coverings and as well as washing your hands and remember that outdoors is safer than indoors we know that we're now in the orange tier but we want to remind you that if we want to continue to keep our loved ones safe and our community safe please take care of yourself take care take care of somebody else and thank you for watching we now have facebook lives on wednesdays and fridays we have removed our free Facebook lives on Mondays, so please tune back on Wednesday for our English Facebook Live. Thank you, everybody.