Videnscentret for Døvblindblevne

Social Interpreting - What and Why? A New Project in the Danish Context

Plenumforelæsning holdt på International Symposium on Development and Innovations in Interpreting for Deafblind People, Leuwenhorst, Holland, juni 1999 af Kirsten Jansbøl, Videnscentret for Døvblindblevne

The new Danish experiment with social interpreting was mentioned at the European Deafblind Network (EdbN) seminar in Poitier this past March. William later asked me: "What’s going on in Denmark?" And with my free play on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and on William, he continued: "Is there something rotten in the state of Denmark? What is social interpreting?"

As a result William asked me to join this symposium to relate the developments in the interpreting area pertaining to the deafblind in Denmark. And I am pleased to be able to do so today.

Presently deaf and deafblind people have the right to the assistance of an interpreter in the following situations:

  • During their education
  • At their place of employment
  • At trials
  • When being seen by a physician (though given that the physician judges interpreting necessary)

And it is true that the Danish state has earmarked 35 million kroner (approximately 3.5 million pounds) for "social interpreting" over a 3½ year period - with 500.000 pounds to be spent in 1999 and 1,000,000 a year for the next three years.

In the project proposal, social interpreting is defined to include interpretation in the following situations:

  • Appointments with health professionals
  • Meetings with public authorities
  • Meetings with bank, insurance company, or lawyer
  • Trade union meetings and political meetings
  • Voluntary work in clubs and associations
  • Leisure activities
  • Social events in the family and weddings, funerals etc.
  • Job interviews
  • Buying larger private items (car, house etc.)

The target group for the proposal comprises deaf and deafblind sign language users, people with acquired deafness, and people with a severe hearing loss.

Why are these efforts being made in the area of social interpreting in Denmark? And why has the term "social interpreting" been invented?

And here we have to bear in mind, that the development of services for citizens of any country is dependent upon and determined in part by local factors that are primarily a result of the political and economic situation. The development of services for the deafblind, for example, takes place within such a context. Thus it is within this sphere that the efforts, and even struggles, take place to ensure equal opportunities for people with disabilities. And the services available to citizens are not necessarily based solely on citizen needs, in our case solily on the needs of the deafblind.

I will illustrate this by telling you about how the deaf and deafblind in Denmark have made their way to social interpreting.

In the fifties and sixties the western part of the world experienced great economic growth. One result - in the Danish context - was a law concerning rehabilitation - enacted in 1960. In Denmark, the shortage of labour resulted in a focus on the labour reserve constituted by people with disabilities. And more or less at the same time, attitudes toward the people with disabilities were changing a bit.

People stop to or ceased to believe that the disabled have more in common with each other than they do with other people. Over time these changing attitudes also led to a change in language use, at least among the professionels: we no longer refer to disabled people, but rather to people with disabilities.

Through the seventies and eighties, this altered perception of people with disabilities led to a number of changes for people with disabilities in relation to education and employment. It became increasingly common to consider the specific abilities and interests of the individual. The traditional occupations for blind and deaf persons, for example, were becoming less and less common as both the blind and the deaf began to make more varied educational choices.

For a deaf person, however, such a choice required interpreter assistance during classes. And this was rendered possible by the former mentioned law on rehabilitation. Deaf people had thereby been granted the right to interpreting - free of charge - for their education. However, it should be added that the social authorities had to approve and still have to approve the course or programme for which interpreting could be made available free of charge.

Approval was based on and are still based on an individual assessment of whether a given educational programme is likely to lead to employment and financial independence. Deaf people are therefore still not free to select their education, a choice that is in principle available to the rest of the Danish population.

As deaf people had been given the right to interpreting - free of charge - in an educational context, deafblind sign language users had in principle also been granted this right.

For the deaf people and those with other disabilities who chose education outside a traditional "disabled" field, it became clear during the eighties that it was difficult to compete for jobs without special assistance. The blind social workers, for example, needed specific assistance in reading cases they were handling, and the deaf engineer, for example, required interpreter assistance during meetings at work.

In 1991, after significant pressure from the political organisations of people with disabilities, a new law was enacted in Denmark – a law pertaining to personal assistance for people with disabilities who are employed on regular labour market terms. In this way, deaf people were given the right to as many as twenty hours of interpreting each week. A precondition for such assistance was fulltime employment and, as I mentioned, that employment was based on regular labour market terms.

A deafblind sign language user would have the same rights. However, no deafblind sign language user were employed on regular terms. Consequently, there was still no interpreter assistance for the deafblind.

This legislation changed in 1995 and now also includes assistance to employees who have protected jobs. Personally, I am familiar with three cases in which deafblind people in protected jobs make use of this legislation and are provided with interpreter assistance in connection with their tasks at work.

When attempting to understand the Danish "invention" of the term "social interpreting," it is of central importance to recognise that access to free interpreting has been associated only with the labour market - and with education as preparation for entry onto the labour market. Only in these contexts have the deaf and deafblind had the right to interpreters paid by public authorities.

Consequently, interpreting has not really been available for deafblind sign language users. In this connection, the deafblind have not been considered as a separate group.

What is a contact person?

During the second half of the eighties, focus on the situation of people with acquired deafblindness increased somewhat in Denmark. This included the formation of two committees on deafblindness. And in 1986, people with acquired deafblindness established their own organisation with Ove Bejsnap as president. Ove Bejsnap, who attended the Edbn seminar at Poitier, is by the way entirely deaf and entirely blind.

This focus on the situation for the deafblind led in 1990 to a change in Danish social legislation, which was expanded to include a special contact-person for the deafblind, a special interpreter-guide service for the deafblind.

The law of Social Service states:

"Persons who are deafblind are in addition entitled to the necessary financial support required for the services of a special contact person."

The tasks required of such a contact person are listed in the Ministry of Social Welfare's explanatory guide to this clause:

  • To visit and communicate with the deafblind person
  • To help keep him/her in touch with day-to-day events (via newspaper reading, etc.)
  • To function as a link between the deafblind and his or her environment
  • To assist the deafblind with letters, personal matters, bills, etc.
  • To function as a guide when shopping, visiting, conducting business, etc.
  • To guide and assist him/her in contact with the authorities, in banks, post offices, etc.
  • To help with activities such as courses, meetings, etc.
  • Practical help in the home, however, is not included in the tasks that a contact person is to perform.

The weekly hours for a contact person depend on the individual needs of the deafblind person. Hours typically vary between five and twenty-five per week.

A contact person for a deafblind sign language user will most often also be deaf.

This system has led to a significant increase in the quality of life for a great number of deafblind people. Many have emerged from a form of isolation that those of us who see and hear could never fully comprehend.

And these positive changes have resulted in the fact that some deafblind people in Denmark have found the energy to struggle for equal opportunities for the deafblind.

The contact person system is invaluable to the individual deafblind person. And for the deafblind oral language user, the system presumably covers communication needs in relation to the hearing and speaking world.

But contact persons for deafblind sign language users must fulfil special requirements. The optimal contact person for a deafblind sign language user is someone who is not only a sign language user possessing the human and professional qualifications required in order to be this close to another human being and constitute his/her eyes and ears: this person is also someone who is able to communicate with the hearing and speaking world.

In other words, a sign language interpreter with the necessary personal and professional qualifications for being a contact person.

For several reasons, this optimal solution never became possible. One significant reason was the fact that there weren’t very many sign language interpreters available – which still remains a problem today.

Secondly, this arrangement had to be as inexpensive as possible. And although interpreters don’t receive princely wages, their salaries are considerably higher than the salary level established for contact persons.

Thirdly, the comprehensive changes taking place in society and the labour market – with the shift from an industrial to an information society – resulted in a high level of unemployment among deaf people.

Deaf people with the necessary human and professional qualifications would therefore be able to fulfil three of the four requirements for an optimal contact person. And they could even fulfil the first three requirements for assisting a deafblind sign language user – provided they would be given the opportunity to acquire the necessary professional skills.

Consequently, the contact person arrangement generated job opportunities for a number of deaf people in Denmark.

However, the last of the four requirements for an optimal contact person, namely, the ability to facilitate communication with the hearing and speaking world, can naturally not be fulfilled by a deaf contact person.

Therefore, the contact person arrangement does not meet the collective communication needs of deafblind sign language user. A number of situations will require the presence of an interpreter.

And this is where the specific interpreting needs of the deafblind become evident.

How did "social interpreting" become a political possibility?

Just as the ways of the Lord are past understanding, the ways of the politicians can be beyond comprehension. Approximately ten years ago, several political parties were negotiating a special conciliation concerning cost of living salary regulation. The parties involved were granted disposal rights over a considerable amount of money each year. This sum is available for these parties to spend as they deem appropriate.

The organisation of deaf and deafblind people in Denmark have often called attention to their specific communication problems. The organisation of deaf people has been active in this area for many years, and the organisation of deafblind in recent years. For example, the previously mentioned president of the Danish Association of the Deafblind, Ove Bejsnap, arranged a happening in connection with the most recent general election in Denmark.

Accompanied by his contact person, Ove Bejsnap showed up at an election meeting wearing two huge posters – one on his back and one in front of his body. The text on the poster (which had been dictated by Ove and written by his contact person) read that Ove wanted to participate in the election meeting but that he could not afford an interpreter, and was therefore prevented from participating. Many newspapers covered this happening, and of course several papers interviewed Ove Bejsnap.

This action and others like it, along with significant support from the professional community, caused the politicians, precisely in 1998, to offer deaf, deafblind, acquired deaf and people with severe hearing loss the opportunity to communicate with hearing and speaking people in other than work-related contexts.

How will this be implemented?

It remains unclear how these new decisions will be carried out in practice, because just half a year ago, no one knew that funds would be made available for this type of interpreting. This was announced only five months ago.

At that time, the Ministry of Social Affairs was under the impression that the 35 million Danish kroner could be given as one pool to the three disability organisations covering the target groups. As might have been foreseen, this entailed rather comprehensive administrative problems, and the ministry have therefore now decided to assign the task to the organisation that has been responsible for interpreting for deaf people: the Institution for the Deaf. Subsequent to this development, this institution has (in co-operation with its board) proposed a model that ensures the influence of the respective disability organisations on the project.

How will this work?

Clearly, we are not able, at the present time, to say how the implementation of this project will work. You will have to ask us again two or three years from now. But when we are dealing with the deafblind, a number of specific issues should be given consideration.

In Denmark, the task of the interpreter is only to interpret – also when it comes to the deafblind. A Danish interpreter does not accompany the person in need of assistance. But should there be an interpreter/guide service available for the deafblind? Or should the deafblind person be accompanied to a political meeting, for example, by his or her contact person, then assisted by the

interpreter during the meeting, and finally accompanied home again by the contact person? These questions and many others remain unanswered at the moment.

What happens when the project period is over?

Of course we don’t know what will happen once the current project period is over. But assuming that the project becomes a success, the costs of a permanent arrangement would have to be met by counties and municipalities. And we don’t know what conditions the counties and municipalities would stipulate in taking on this new task. Certainly, many lengthy negotiations will be necessary.

We look forward to being able to provide the answers to all these questions three years from now.

Thank you very much for listening!