Professional Training for Community InterpretersThe Community Interpreter® The Community Interpreter®

“Great instructors, real life experiences, really help relate to our work.”Community interpreting is a growing profession that targets the sectors of health care, education and human and social services. In the past, family and friends used to interpret in these settings. To-day, federal civil rights legislation, national ethics and standards for interpreters, hospital accredita-tion agencies and many state and municipal laws endorse or promote the use of qualified interpret-ers. A qualified interpreter should, at a minimum, attend professional training and be tested for language proficiency.

A 40-hour training course is considered by many the minimum threshold for community interpret-ing. The Community Interpreter ® meets this need. The comprehensive manual consists of over 400 pages, while the exercise workbook includes more than 100 pages of role plays and skills-based activ-ities. In five units, the program covers the following areas.

Professional Training for Community Interpreters Professional Training for Community InterpretersThe Community Interpreter®

UNIT ONE: Ethics and Conduct◊ Overview of the community interpreting

profession

◊ Language proficiency testing and interpretercertification

◊ Language access laws

◊ nterpreter self-assessment (recording exercise)

◊ Codes of ethics for interpreters

◊ A National Code of Ethics for CommunityInterpreters (annotated NCIHC national code)

◊ Applying codes of ethics in the field

UNIT TWO: The Interpreted Session◊ Overview of the interpreted session

◊ Interpreter modes and selecting modes

◊ Steps for sight translation

◊ Components of the session

◊ Assignments, preparation, professional introductions

◊ Managing the flow, terminology

◊ Intervention

◊ Core skills: accuracy, interpreting for meaning,positioning, first and third person, register, vulgarity,role shifts, memory, note-taking

◊ Post-session: reporting, critical incidents, processing

UNIT THREE: Culture and Mediation◊ Culture and cultural competence

◊ Meaning and mediation

◊ Steps for mediation and basic mediation skills

◊ Interpreter duties and interpreter roles

◊ Checking for understanding, clarification, culturalmediation

◊ CHIA decision-making guidelines

◊ The client as cultural expert

◊ Stereotyping and bias

UNIT FOUR: Community Services◊ Interpreting in Health Care, Interpreting in

Educational Settings, Interpreting for HumanServices

◊ Unit Four is presented according to the needs of theaudience. If participants come primarily from onesector (e.g., health care), that sector alone will bediscussed during this unit. Otherwise, all three areaswill be covered, in addition to legal interpreting andterminology.

◊ Introduction to legal interpreting

◊ Community vs. legal interpreting

◊ Overview of the U.S. health care system and/or

◊ Overview of human and social services in the U.S.and/or

◊ Overview of the U.S. Department of Education(with a focus on K-12 schools)

◊ Professional concerns, e.g., signing as a witness;liability; interpreter insurance

◊ Terminology in community services (may addressmedical, educational or social services, or all threesectors) and use of dictionaries and aids.

UNIT FIVE: Standards of Practice◊ Standards of practice for community interpreters:

national standards and best practices.

◊ Applying standards in the field Professionalboundaries

◊ Advocacy

◊ Interpreter safety

◊ Professional development

“I think this is one of the best trainings I’ve had, which will realistically assist me in becoming better at my job. Thank you!"

Professional Training for Community InterpretersThe Community Interpreter® The Community Interpreter®

List of TrainersCCC trainers are specialized, conscientious and dynamic. They have extensive experience in the field, and many are superbly qualified. They arrive well prepared and grounded in the material.

Among our trainers and consultants we are proud to include:

Marjory BancroftMarjory Bancroft is an international leader in the development of training programs for community interpreting, cultural competence and language access, with over 30 years in the field of language and education. She holds a BA and MA in French linguistics from Quebec City and advanced language certificates from Spain, Germany, and Jordan. After an early career teaching translation, English and French for two universities in Quebec and Jordan, two Quebec government immigrant schools in Montreal, continuing education programs and the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC, she spent several years interpreting, translating and directing an immigrant health program and a language bank of 200 interpreters and translators.

In 2001 she founded Cross-Cultural Communications (CCC), the only national training agency for community interpreting and cultural competence. CCC offers The Community Interpreter ®, the leading international program in community interpreting with 125 licensed trainers in 26 U.S. states and six other countries. She is also the Executive Director of THE VOICE OF LOVE, a national, all-volunteer project devoted to guiding those who interpret for survivors of torture, trauma and sexual violence.

The author of numerous articles, training manuals, facilitator guides and workbooks on community and medical interpreting, as well as four train-the-trainer manuals in cultural competence, she speaks widely at conferences across the U.S. and abroad. She sits on international committees and is the world Project Leader for a new ISO International Standard on general interpreting requirements.

Professional Training for Community Interpreters Professional Training for Community InterpretersThe Community Interpreter®

List of Trainers Continued

Pamela Bohrer-BrownPamela Bohrer-Brown is a bilingual/bicultural American who lived for 17 years in Venezuela, where she and her husband adopted two Venezuelan children.

A program manager and past coordinator for the HHS Bilingual/ Bicultural Demonstration Project for Baltimore Medical System (a federally qualified health center with seven clinical sites), Pam also coordinated the Hispanic Health Care Access Project in Baltimore. She is currently Director of Maternal and Child Health and Multicultural Programs at Baltimore Medical System.

In addition to her fourteen-year involvement with the Baltimore Latino community, she has offered trainings, conferences presentations and workshops in interpreting, community health and Spanish secondary education. Pam is also a trained Childbirth Educator and Doula (birth companion), a health educator, and a trainer for Bridging the Gap, a national medical interpreter training program. Pam has extensive experience interpreting in all sectors of health care, from hospitals to small clinics, and she has interpreted for human and social services as well. Her central focus is women’s health programs serving Limited English Proficient Mexicans and Central Americans.

Professional Training for Community Interpreters Professional Training for Community InterpretersThe Community Interpreter®

List of Trainers Continued

Otisha Ayala-FayaA resident of Westchester County, New York, Otisha has been a professional freelance interpreter for over 20 years. She is nationally certified as an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (NIC-RID) and a qualified Spanish interpreter. As a registered interpreter for the New York State Unified Court System for close to 10 years, she is often asked to cover special cases that require trilingual interpretation.

Throughout her career, Otisha has worked intensively as a systems advocate and language access consultant. A former hospital administrator for interpreting services, and an ADA & LEP compliance officer at one of the largest medical centers in New York City, she also served as an advisory board member on medical interpretation and best practices with the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA).

Otisha has over 15 years’ experience teaching ASL and English as a Second Language (ESL). She has also been a medical interpreter trainer for over 10 years. In her role as a mentor to new interpreters and college students, she works on relating theories of professional practice to real life situations. She continuously thrives in understanding how best to serve the interpreting community around her, and shares her passion and her experiences in the classroom, providing a safe and beneficial learning environment for all of her aspiring interpreting students.

Professional Training for Community Interpreters Professional Training for Community InterpretersThe Community Interpreter®

List of Trainers Continued

Leslie Bilchick

For more information, or to register for the next session, go to www.cultureandlanguage.net and click on Training or contact the CCC office:

Cross-Cultural Communications10015 Old Columbia Road, Suite B-215 Columbia, MD 21046410.312.5599 (voice) 410.750.0332 (fax) ccc2@cultureandlanguage.net

Leslie Bilchick was born in New York City to a cross-cultural family: a Lithuanian Catholic mother from rural Pennsylvania and a Jewish father born and raised in Manhattan. She has been studying the diversity of human relations and communication ever since. After earning a degree in International Relations and Spanish, she co-directed a community-based Latin America peace and justice organization in Baltimore and then served as staff writer and media coordinator for a service provider to the foreign-born in Howard County, Maryland. She went on to promote international solidarity and cross-border relations with the SHARE Foundation’s El Salvador field office, later turning to a freelance interpreting, consulting and translating career based in San Salvador and then in Maryland, where she continues to work, reside and explore the world. A past CCC Training Coordinator, Leslie continues to serve as a consultant, editor and special projects advisor for CCC.