Easing early communication
This section focuses on providing language assistance to resettled refugees from the reception stage onwards. In the early integration period, many resettled refugees will have a limited grasp of the language of the resettlement country (referred to as the target language). While they will begin to acquire this through their participation in language training programmes and their day-to-day interactions in the receiving community, it will be some time before they achieve basic competency and longer still before they are technically proficient. Even if functional in the target language, resettled refugees may require assistance when communicating about matters requiring higher proficiency or in circumstances that require technical language (e.g. health care or legal matters).
- identifying interpreters and translators based on the languages spoken by the refugees, at the earliest possible stage.
- recruiting bilingual integration support workers.
- testing identified interpreters and bilingual integration support workers for proficiency in target languages.
- developing guidelines for integration support staff on how to work with interpreters (e.g., shortening sentences and avoiding use of abbreviations and acronyms).
- translating written materials including information about services and entitlements as well as forms and questionnaires. Refugees may also need to have important documents translated (e.g. medical records, professional qualifications).
- professional development and support (e.g. roles, professional boundaries, confidentiality) for language support providers.
In the longer term, aim for:
- establishing centralised interpreting and translating services or banks/rosters.
- establishing interpreting services in key government departments (education, income support, employment, health).
- formal training, accreditation and standards for professional interpreters.
- identify formal language training opportunities for integration support staff.
- testing identified interpreters and bilingual integration support workers for proficiency in target languages.
- strategies to promote the use of interpreters among government and community based organisations and service providers.
Some individuals may have language learning difficulties and will require ongoing interpretation support.
Providing access to language assistance helps to:
- promote clear communication to assist with establishing social connections.
- facilitate resettled refugees’ access to the services and resources they will require for integration.
- foster resettled refugees’ understanding of the receiving community.
The use of family and friends for interpretation should be discouraged in certain settings because:
- confidentiality is particularly important when working with resettled refugees, especially those from small, close-knit communities.
- they may be placed in a position where they are exposed to information of a sensitive nature.
- communication with the resettled refugee may be impaired if there are issues they feel unwilling, uncomfortable or embarrassed about discussing.
- this may place undue burden on these relationships and, especially if involving young children.
- they may lack the proficiency in both languages to accurately interpret information, particularly in matters requiring technical language proficiency (e.g. legal and health care matters).
A number of factors will influence the planning and provision of language assistance in receiving communities, including:
- the extent to which there are established refugee and diaspora communities that speak the target language.
- the existence of infrastructures to support language assistance providers. It is also important that training is provided on dealing with vicarious trauma and its effects on communication. Like other professionals working closely with resettled refugees, interpreters require professional debriefing and support.
- funding arrangements for language assistance.
Planning language assistance for reception and early integration support
Government authorities, resettlement agencies or NGOs responsible for receiving refugees and providing early integration support will need to make provision for language assistance in order to communicate with resettled refugees and facilitate their access to services and programs in the wider community. In most countries provision is made for this through funding arrangements or service agreements.
Language assistance for long term integration
Support provided may be time limited, therefore it is important to mainstream language assistance across service providers (e.g., government income support programmes, health care services).
Language Assistance in the US
HIAS’s Community Interpretation Programme USA
HIAS supports resettlement partners from four cities in the US to become certified as Trainer-of-Trainers (ToT) at Community Interpreter International (CII). The ToT format is a curriculum that CII provide which is a 40-hours of foundational information on community interpretation. It trains individuals to offer a medical, social services, and/or educational content oriented curriculum in a 40 to 100-hour interpreter training without licensing fees. The purpose of the HIAS initiative is to offer an employment opportunity or secondary source of income for refugees to work as interpreters, as well as to create a revenue stream for the resettlement partners as they already have the established role of cultural ambassadors writ large. HIAS affiliates have trained staff, refugee populations, and the wider community as Community Interpreters, which has increased the resettlement partner’s capacity to deliver high quality services in more refugee languages.
Approaches to providing language assistance
There are three primary ways in which existing resettlement countries meet language assistance needs:
- by recruiting, testing and training bilingual staff in integration support roles and key professional actors who work in locations where there is a significant refugee population.
- by building a bank/roster of tested and trained interpreters and translators.
- by using tested and trained volunteers, primarily from diaspora communities. These are not mutually exclusive, with many countries using different approaches in a complementary way.
Promoting access to interpreters in new resettlement countries
New and emerging resettlement countries may have limited capacity to fund training and recruit suitable interpreters. Emerging resettlement countries have sought to address this by:
- recruiting, testing, and training bilingual volunteers.
- employing bilingual integration caseworkers.
- securing assistance with translations through the government ministry responsible for foreign affairs.
Centralised interpreter services or ‘interpreter banks or rosters’
Given that some resettlement countries have a highly diverse refugee intake, it is difficult, even for specialist services, to employ interpreters or bilingual staff to meet all needs. This is particularly the case given that the need for language assistance at any point in time cannot always be predicted.
In countries with a diverse population, there might be existing centralised interpreting and translating services (either by government, voluntary organisations or the private sector) that can be utilised. Generally, these services offer interpreters who attend appointments ‘on-site’ (or face-to-face) as well as remotely.
In the USA, some smaller agencies meet language assistance needs through contracts with larger facilities (such as hospitals) to secure interpreters for each session.
While in most countries, centralised interpreter services can only be accessed by service providers on behalf of resettled refugees, in some they can be accessed free-of-charge by resettled refugees themselves.
Dedicated interpreter services may also be established in larger government departments in other countries.
Promoting use of interpreting and translating services
Even with well-established and relatively accessible interpreter services, there is a need to ensure that professionals and staff in the wider community utilise them. Professional development and awareness raising activities may be required to ensure that relevant staff are:
- able to identify clients requiring an interpreter.
- understand the importance and advantages of communicating through an interpreter, despite the additional time and costs involved.
- aware of booking arrangements.
- understand the basic skills involved in communicating through an interpreter.
- aware of any legislative requirements to provide language assistance.
Strategies that have been used by resettlement countries to promote the use of interpreters include:
- simplifying booking procedures for interpreters.
- providing cards to resettled refugees indicating the language they speak and the contact details for interpretation services.
- awareness raising campaigns in refugee communities on the right to interpretation (e.g. multilingual posters in health care waiting rooms).
- funding agreements between government and service providers.
- obliging service providers to give language assistance to clients who are not proficient in the target language.
- legislation to mandate the use of interpreters.
Work force development, quality assurance and professional support
Quality interpretation requires skills not only in the area of technical language proficiency, but in interpersonal communication, ethics and cross-cultural issues.
In many countries, this is achieved through the development of:
- formal training, credentials and accreditation for interpreters and translators. In some countries, interpreters have also been offered specialist training in specific areas (such as mental health interpreting, legal interpreting).
- professional standards for interpreters and translators.
- professional codes of ethics for interpreters and translators.
Language Assistance in Germany
The service SPuKin Germany – Sprach- und Kommunikationsmittlung (language and communication mediation) offers language mediation in the educational, social and health sector in the region of Osnabrück in order to ease language communication between employees and clients. The coordination of mediations is administered by the Caritas association for the diocese Osnabrück e.V. and is project independent since 2012.
In addition to this service the “SPuK Bund 3” project, funded through the European Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), intends to promote language mediation throughout Germany as a standardized and professional service and thereby promotes an intercultural opening of different sectors through the inclusion of multilingualism. The project is implemented by the Caritas association for the diocese Osnabrück e.V. (project management) as well as the Caritas-regional association Nordhessen-Kassel.
- The SPuK language mediation is a fee-based service provision for the health, social and educational sector in the region of Osnabrück (fees are covered by the facilities, not the clients).
- It aims at improving the communication between employees and clients through the involvement of independent language and communication mediators.
- The mediators bridge language barriers and ease cultural misunderstandings for people with low or no knowledge of German.
- SPuK mediators work for SPuK as a side-line and regularly attend trainings.
- There are over 60 women and men currently working in the SPuK network as mediators offering mediation in over 35 languages.
- SPuK language mediation enables migrants with low or no knowledge of German to equally use services provided by the social, health and educational sector in the Region of Osnabrück.
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A sound integration programme would:
- have government funded service providers deliver appropriate language assistance.
- take steps to ensure that reception and early settlement support services provide appropriate language assistance.
- support the development of centralised interpreter and translating services.
- have ongoing strategies for planning and building an interpreter roster in response to changing needs and intake patterns.
- have systems for screening and training volunteer language assistance providers.
- support the development of appropriate training, accreditation and standards for professional interpreters.
- provide funding and technical support for professional development programs for bilingual integration caseworkers.
- have arrangements for the translation of key documents at minimal or no cost to resettled refugees (e.g. prior professional qualifications, medical records).
Specific programmes and services would:
- have a language assistance plan.
- inform resettled refugees of their rights to language assistance.
- provide language assistance in a timely manner.
- have key information, forms and other documents translated into target languages.
- provide training to staff on booking and using interpreters.
- have digital and telephone interpretation services available to refugees to access interpretation services for their own daily needs.
- put in place quality assurance mechanisms.
- wherever practical, recruit bilingual staff in key professional and client contact positions.
- avoid the use of untrained staff to interpret.