Our language access program continues to positively impact the health and human service delivery system in Palm Beach County by developing interpreting knowledge health care for bilingual staff, improving the language skills of key staff in English only, improving the linguistically appropriate services of health/human service providers and helping bilingual volunteers improve the lives of our communities. Although we have provided training on interpreting skills to bilingual staff, this time our efforts have focused on students entering or enrolling in medical service professions. To this end, we contacted all of our local colleges and universities offering medical services programs. They were a key element in attracting these young future professionals. So far, we have delivered two medical interpreting training courses (March 29 - April 2, June 21 - 25) and a one-day intensive MI training on March 13. Of the 50 participants who passed the posttest, 22 were students from various academic entities (South University, Palm Beach State College, Keizer College, and Lake Worth Medical Magnet HS). These students felt that these skills would enrich their profession and be a nice addition to their resume. Our collaboration with these academic institutions has been a key factor in our success. In light of this effort, we have asked Palm Beach State College to provide CEUs (Continuing Education Units) for our Medical Interpreting class. We believe that providing CEUs to the medical services profession will enhance the attractiveness of our program and attract more bilingual professionals to the world of medical interpreting. We are awaiting feedback from Palm Beach State College on this matter and look forward to partnering...... middle of document ...... the goal of this initiative is twofold; first, to address the interpreter gap in medical facilities and second, to improve health disparities for our LEP population. So far, we have trained 14 bilingual community volunteers and placed 9 volunteers in two medical facilities; Caridad Clinic and CL Brumback health center on a regular basis. Our next step is to place these volunteers in hospital and clinic emergency rooms. Language access is just one significant part of the overall quest to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS) in Palm Beach County. However, by providing medical interpreting training, basic language skills courses, and support for interpreting and translation services to health and human service providers, we are one step closer to reducing disparities in health and, thus, improved health outcomes..