The trend of awarding interpreter provision contracts or framework agreements to the cheapest bidder has brought to mind the topic of self regulation.
Professions can be self regulated or by government. Interpreters are neither protected nor regulated by legislation, which leaves us regulated only by ourselves.
We have the NRCPD but it should not stop there. Self regulation comes in many guises and does not and should not stop at the yellow badge for many reasons.
Before interpreting became so focussed on business and profits, we were the preserve of the Deaf community.
We were cherry picked to be interpreters as Deaf people recognised the special heady mix of potential from the right attitude to ones ability to sign. Researchers have tried to pin point and formally record what this mix of attributes are. Interestingly, Deaf people rated different attributes higher than the ones interpreters did. Deaf people now have interpreters who are self selected and those who are not necessarily right for the job.
Along came BSL qualifications and the mainstream NVQ. With less Deaf people being used to teach interpreters and the focus on profit for course providers, people were encouraged to train regardless of aptitude. Quite often students of interpreting have been on training courses without this input from Deaf tutors leaving gaps in many interpreters’ skills.
I had a memorable conversation with someone after a booking where she broke down in tears. She had spent £6,000 on training and had finally realised after repeating many qualifications that she didn’t have the right mix of skills or the aptitude for sign language. Through her tears she asked why no-one had ever told her.
Another element of self regulation is that it engenders trust from the community and the clients we serve. The better our self regulation and abilities as individuals to allow for that to happen the more able we are to be trusted, to work with others and to gain the recognition we deserve.
If you are not yet convinced of the need for more self regulation, ask yourself the following:
How many newly qualified interpreters have you experienced gaining their full registration status and on the back of that fling themselves headlong into a booking they are not neccessarily ready for with the bravado of someone who has finished their long training? N.B training never finishes.
How many interpreters have you heard say, ‘I think I’ll do legal work now’? The thought of a court or tribunal booking, where accuracy is vital, more so than in any other booking, should send fear into the hearts of anyone not registered and fully qualified for at least five years. Sadly it no longer does. Do not take on assignments for the status and privilege of doing them, or because the agency wants you to do it, but because you are safe and experienced enough to do them. Tribunals where a panel may decide to keep someone under a section or a court case where someone’s child may be taken into care is not the place for you to practice your skills but where someone fully competent and experienced should be working.
How many interpreters have you seen, even though they have been working for a few years, refuse to engage in meaningful CPD activities? Throwing money at training courses excluded, try videoing yourself and critiquing the clip. With the sound off.
Have you worked with an interpreter who is not self-reflective? Either whilst working or one who is unable to have those open conversations and exchange feedback afterwards.
So how do we further our own self regulation? The obvious is compulsory CPD but as we, as a profession have voted that in and rightfully pushed it onto the NRCPD agenda, I shall leave that as a given. Additionally our other responsibilities should be to:
1) Seek feedback from clients and each other.
2) Debrief after assignments and discuss how we can make improvements.
3) Do not accept work until you are ready and safe to do so with the appropriate experience, skill set and support in place.
4) Do not assume you are safe and ready because you think so, the agency offered you the job or you have convinced yourself but by checking with mentors, peers, clients and friends.
5) Engage the services of a mentor should you want to enter a new domain of experience and ask them to tell you if you are ready for a particular assignment.
6) Complain. Or rather talk to each other if problems occur in bookings, if you can not resolve them submit a complaint to the NRCPD. We are still reluctant to do this to our peers but should an inrerpreter not practice in a safe way, complain we must.
6) Learn what it is to co-interpret properly. This does not mean interpreting for 20 minute stretches each but watching each other for mistakes, correcting them or offering support. Especially inside a courtroom.
Without extra certification in place for interpreters who want to work in legal and mental health settings the above ways of working become even more important.
Ultimately, if we are too fearful or defensive about having these conversations about our own work as practitioners and are unwilling to engage in more self regulation there is usually a reason. It can be an indication that an interpreter is either fearful of what they might be told or understand on some level that what they are doing is wrong or worse, unsafe.
Interpreting
There are 51 posts tagged Interpreting (this is page 24 of 26).
Interpreter Cost Cutting: A False Economy
In these times of fiscal belt tightening funds have to be cut. It’s a given. For statutory bodies it must be hard. So where does the funding get cut and how can they save money?
Cut the stationery budget. There will be fewer pens. Don’t provide sandwiches at meetings. Staff and visitors will feed themselves. Take away the water cooler. There’s a tap.
Say you’re a nurse or a doctor within an NHS trust. Or you are staff in a local authority, the police or the courts. How about trying the following options. What would happen if you did?
Don’t provide an interpreter:
We know the US has a more litigious culture. Here’s what happened there:
Failure to use an interpreter ended in a $71m malpractice lawsuit in the U.S where a Latino boy was suspected to be a drug user but actually had a brain aneurism. A late diagnosis left him a paraplegic.
£400k was awarded to a Deaf woman who was not afforded an American Sign Language Interpreter and could not understand the side effects of her Lupus medication.
Last year, a Sheriff was sued for keeping a Deaf man in custody for 25 days without an interpreter.
What about here in the UK?
In 2004, Mr Tran Quang Tung died at Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre. He hung himself. There was a continued lack of interpreters used by doctors and other members of staff even though they could have done due to systems that were in place.
In summary, a professional is breaking their own code of conduct if they cannot communicate with their patient or service user. Guesswork does not amount to being able to care, treat or diagnose them. Crossing your fingers will not work either. Primum non nocere is the benchmark of medical ethics: “First, do no harm”. If you are court staff, justice is unlikely to be achieved. Local authorities, you are not filing your statutory duty.
Use an unqualified or unregistered interpreter:
It is quicker and cheaper to get someone who you think can do the job but is not qualified or registered. Perhaps use someone’s spouse or another member of family?
In 2000, in an A&E department, the wife of a profoundly Deaf man, Sarwat Al-Assaf, was used to interpret questions to her husband such as do you have thoughts of harming your wife or children? Mr Al-Assaf was suffering from severe mental illness. He later went on to kill his wife’s new partner.
Perhaps you get someone who says they have some sign language qualifications or in the case of a spoken language get in, say, the Polish-speaking porter.
One interpreter points out that “The English translation for the word ‘hit’ in Punjabi and Hindi is ‘maar’, but it also means ‘to kill’,” she explains. “So if I’m in court I have to ask the person: are you saying ‘I’m gonna hit you’, or ‘I’m gonna kill you’?” You don’t want to mess around with that distinction, whether it’s in court, for the local authority or a medical appointment.
Every registered interpreter has a tale of how there was an ‘interpreter’ booked but they got called in a week later to sort out the mess, usually to find out that the ‘interpreter’ was someone unregistered who took the payment because they could. It is obvious that in these cases, the service provider has to pay out more. Like getting in a cowboy builder, it ends up costing twice as much to get the mess sorted out afterwards.
It is illegal to employ an unregistered nurse or doctor who will not have to adhere to a Code of Ethics. It is not yet illegal for an unregistered ‘interpreter’ to work as one. Still, it stands to reason that if you use someone who is untrained and unregistered there is no legal recourse when it all backfires as it did in the cases above.
Commission an agency to do it for you:
Perhaps you are an NHS trust, a council or the MoJ and your commissioners are responsible for purchasing interpreting provision. In times of financial austerity, commissioners of services generally tend to care more about costs than quality. In that case, allow them to award an agency a contract or framework agreement with built in standards to ensure quality but ultimately, said agency will not follow them. The agency can not, as it is too costly to get in the appropriate practitioners, i.e. registered interpreters. In order to win the contract, they had to go in too low. The unit costs, if too cheap, can not add up to someone who does the job right and in a professional manner.
So what do you end up with? See the first two options. Rather than not providing the interpreter or getting in someone who is untrained and unregistered, the agency will be doing that instead. You’ll still be paying for it anyway. Freedom of Information requests show agencies are charging the cost of a registered interpreter but not necessarily providing one.
Not much of a cost saving then. Unless the commissioner chose a reputable agency. They normally charge more though so the likelihood is the statutory organisation or commissioner did not make that choice.
The Solution:
Pay for a trained and registered interpreter to:
Avoid – malpractice, misdiagnosis, wasted time, wasted cost orders, being sued and the distress of those to whom you are supposed to be providing a service.
Ensure – you are abiding by the code of ethics of your profession, you are providing the service you are supposed to, you are getting value for money, and you are able to complain or simply to trust that the proper communication is taking place.
How to save money:
Book and pay for a trained and registered interpreter.
How to check if an interpreter, from an agency or one that is booked direct, is registered:
Check the interpreter’s name against the lists held by NRPSI (spoken languages) or NRCPD (sign language). On their arrival ask to see their ID card.
These registers have been in existence for a while for good reason. Avoid the cowboy, avoid the lawsuit, avoid paying out twice.