interpreting

There are 29 posts filed in interpreting (this is page 11 of 15).

When we resign ourselves to acceptance, do we desensitise ourselves to what is happening on the ground?

Have Interpreters resigned themselves to accept and even expect that level of access provided to the Deaf community, that they have trained to serve, to be as poor as it is in this current day?
I am not naive to the fact that the situation we find ourselves in today with ‘signers’ turning up to jobs parading themselves as Interpreters is anything new; it has been going on decades. However we are in 2012. We now have over 700 Registered Sign Language Interpreters (RSLIs) on the NRCPD register and many more Trainee (TI) and Junior Trainee Interpreters (JTIs) quickly following in their footsteps. Is it acceptable that at medical appointments people are still forced to accept ‘signers’ or worse still, use their parents, friends, children?
When the first video was published on Facebook from ASLI’s Professional & Consumers Working Group, urging the Deaf community to come forward with their stories of poor access to Healthcare, it did cause a stir in the Deaf community, but it wasn’t enough for people to come forward. It was perhaps that the Deaf community were just ‘used to’ the level of access they were being provided. Probably because in the areas where there is poor service, it is what they have received for years and so this has become expected. People have perhaps become resigned to their fate.
I believe that Interpreters may have resigned themselves to the same fate. We have become so used to hearing all these stories intermittently through our everyday working lives that we have become hardened to them. This may be a form of self-preservation, professional preservation even, but what does it achieve? The ‘signers’ are still out there, still taking on work, still causing upset and mayhem when they are unable to cope with the level of Sign Language or English used; and they are parading themselves as members of our profession. I’m sure we all agree that they are clearly not professional otherwise they would know and understand their limits and not take on such work in the first place.
But what are we doing about it? There are a few who are standing up to defend the profession, a few working on standards and awareness in an effort to prevent such harm, but a handful of 700 is hardly going to make waves. The ripples can only reach so far. If everyone sticks their head in the sand, or carries on thinking all is well because someone else is already fighting the cause, then we are not going to get very far.
We all need to do our bit, wear our NRCPD badges to EVERY job, even those regular bookings in that office we’ve been working in for years. Remind clients of the standard they should be expecting, so the next time they have a medical appointment they know to look out for the badge. It may even be an awareness exercise if someone had no knowledge of registration of Interpreters in the first place and just ‘liked your signing’; the excuse most often heard from ‘signers’ parading themselves as ‘good Interpreters’.
What will it take for the profession to unite and stand up for ourselves? Mistakes happen, they have been occurring for years. Are we not a large enough group of professionals now to make more noise about it and stand up for ourselves, the people we serve and prevent any more of a reduction in access and standards for the Deaf community?
Bibi Lacey-Davidson
Chair of the Professional & Consumers Working Group, ASLI

Campaign for Access to Health Care: Petition Launched

The problems of the outsourcing of interpreter provision by the NHS since 2010 have affected Deaf people’s access to quality interpreter provision. This an issue that has been ongoing for years which outsourcing to spoken language interpreting agencies, who have little regard for the use of NRCPD registered Interpreters, has exacerbated.
The recent survey by Deaf organisations showed that 41% of respondents had left an appointment confused about their condition because they couldn’t understand what was signed and 57% had left an appointment confused about how to take medication because no Sign Language Interpreter had been provided.
The government and statutory organisations are ignoring their legal duties under the Equality Act 2010, and Deaf people aren’t receiving appropriate access to health care.
A petition has been launched to mark Deaf Awareness Week, 7th – 13th May, and to highlight the issue of untrained and inappropriate people being used to communicate for health care services rather than Interpreters registered with the NRCPD which proves they’ve reached the required standard of training and are recognised as professionals working with the Deaf community.
Some agencies, which evidence suggests will happily put someone with a basic sign language qualification into a hospital assignment, are either not being monitored effectively or this is lip service. A way for health care providers to think they’ve met their duties under The Equality Act.
Thank you to the organisations involved in the campaign for their good work (Action on Hearing Loss, ASLI, BDA, BSMHD, NRCPD and SignHealth).
Please sign the petition below if you haven’t already and spread the word.
www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/deafaccess