SECTION 1. The Massachusetts office for refugees and immigrants shall, in collaboration with the department of public health, the department of mental health, the department of children and families, the department of elementary and secondary education, the department of higher education, and the department of transitional assistance, identify areas in which there is a need for increasing culturally competent services.  For the purposes of this act, “culturally competent services” shall mean a department’s ability to provide direct services to a client in the client’s native language, which shall be provided by a professional with at least 2 years of experience working with a population culturally similar to that of the client.

SECTION 2.  In order to assess the need for increasing culturally competent services, the Massachusetts office for refugees and immigrants shall: (1) obtain all existing data and information from the departments identified in section 1 regarding any culturally competent services the departments currently provide; and (2) collect population data for each municipality in the commonwealth, which shall identify, for each municipality, any ethnic groups that make up at least 2% of the municipality’s population, the language or languages spoken by each such ethnic group, the country of origin of each such ethnic group, and the estimated total population of each such ethnic group.

SECTION 3.  The Massachusetts office for refugees and immigrants shall submit a report on the information collected pursuant to this act, which shall identify areas in need of culturally competent services and recommendations for improving access to culturally competent services, together with drafts of legislation or regulations necessary to carry those recommendations into effect, by filing the same with the governor, and the clerks of the senate and the house of representatives not later than March 31, 2016. The clerks of the senate and the house of representatives shall forward the report to the president of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives.