The Third National Conference on
Quality Health Care for Culturally Diverse Populations:
Advancing Effective Health Care through Systems Development, Data, and Measurement

October 2 - 4, 2002, Chicago, IL
Westin Chicago River North Hotel

Workshop F: Teaching core competencies in interpreter training: challenges and opportunities for curriculum development

Panelists
Gayle Tang, Elaine Quinn, Cindy Roat, Priscilla Mendenhall

Moderator
Elizabeth Nguyen

Small Group Facilitators
Karin Ruschke, Linda Okahara, Priscilla Mendenhall, Cindy Roat

Abstract
Health care interpreter training, once a rare commodity in the United States, is becoming more available. Around the country, talented interpreter educators are experimenting with various approaches to training the large number of bilingual individuals who are providing health care interpreter services. Basic questions, however, remain:

• What are the core competencies that should be included in a training?
• How long a training really constitutes "training?"
• How do curriculum developers accommodate the specific needs of small language communities, multiple language groups in one class, interpreters with dual roles in the health care system?
• What are possible strategies for teaching the management of cultural differences in the interpreted encounter?

This hands-on workshop targets educators and program coordinators who have experience training interpreters and developing curricula. It will focus on the above questions. The workshop will start with short presentations by three panelists, each of whom will discuss a particular challenge they have faced and resolved. A facilitated open discussion will follow, allowing participants to share their own difficulties and solutions. Finally, the group will divide into small groups to produce short recommendations regarding the specific interpreter training issues under consideration namely: core competencies, minimum duration, tailoring curricula and, cultural brokering.

Bio Sketch
Priscilla Mendenhall is currently Program Director, Community Health Connect at the Northern Virginia Area Health Education Center. In this capacity, she is responsible for the agency's community-based cultural competence education programs and health care interpreter service. Ms. Mendenhall has worked in cross-cultural health for 17 years. She is a founding member of the National Council on Interpretation in Health Care and the Mid-Atlantic Interpreter’s Association. Ms. Mendenhall is co-producer of a documentary on Lao Buddhist healing. She resides in Washington, DC where she is actively involved anti-racism work under the auspices of the Episcopal Church.

Priscilla Mendenhall
Program Director
Community Health Connect
Northern Virginia Area Health Education Center
3131A Mount Vernon
Annandale, VA 22305
Phone: 703-549-7060
Fax: 703-549-7002

Cindy Roat is a consultant and trainer on issues related to language access in health care. She has been a trainer for over twenty years, starting her career by working for a decade in rural development programs in Latin America, after which she earned a Masters degree in International Public Health from the University of Washington in Seattle. Certified by the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services for both medical and social service interpreting, she has been a medical interpreter since 1992. She has made significant contributions in the areas of training, program development, policy formulation, advocacy and organizational outreach. Cindy is the principle author of Bridging the Gap, currently the most widely offered training for medical interpreters in the United States. She is a founding member of the Society of Medical Interpreters (SOMI) in Seattle and Co-chair of the Board of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care (NCIHC) and is known nationally as an energetic advocate for the field of health care interpreting and for interpreters in general.

Cindy Roat
10548 Evanston Avenue North
Seattle, WA 98133
Phone: 206-362-7238
Fax: 253-540-3905
E-mail: cindy.roat@alumni.williams.edu

 NEXT >

essentials | models and practices | policy | legal issues | networking | table of contents | contact us | who we are

Copyright © 2003, DiversityRx; www.diversityRx.org, Last update: June 11, 2005

 Diversity Rx is sponsored by: