Licensure - long overdue
Federal requirement: "qualified", "effective"
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) defines “qualified interpreter” in its Title III regulation as:
“an interpreter who is able to interpret effectively, accurately and impartially both receptively and expressively, using any necessary specialized vocabulary.”
The ADA also states, "Communication with persons with disabilities must be as effective as communication with others." ADA Glossary of Terms
Unfortunately the ADA is ambiguous regarding the meaning of "qualified" and "effective" and worse, makes no provision for establishment or oversight of either of these legal requirements.
Florida requirements: ZERO
In the absence of clear direction from the ADA, several states have established minimum requirements for sign language interpreters. Some have done this via licensure laws.
Florida has established NO minimum requirements to work as a sign language interpreter. What a slap in the face of every deaf client and of every interpreter who has worked to become certified and to maintain that certification.
Most, maybe all, Florida judicial district courts require that interpreters who contract directly with the court be RID certified. Perhaps they also include this requirement when contracting with agencies but I know of instances when an agency sent an uncertified person to interpret a court proceeding. In some of those cases that person was sent to court repeatedly and the court had no idea that the person was not certified until a direct contract interpreter pointed it out.
Agencies also send uncertified persons to interpret at depositions, at police investigations, in jails, in hospitals, and at mental health sessions and assessments, including court ordered assessments and Baker Act situations. Some agencies are also willing to send uncertified persons to interpret depositions and other investigative proceedings solo and those uncertified persons accept those assignments. They do not understand or do not care that any proceeding that has evidentiary value must have a team interpreter to act as a language monitor. Also remember that only certified interpreters must adhere to the NAD-RID Code of Professional Conduct (CPC) and its tenet that we not accept assignments for which we are not qualified.
Using an uncertified, unqualified person in court or to interpret proceedings that have evidentiary value risks violating the Sixth Amendment rights of deaf defendants and compromising the accuracy and integrity of the court record.
Florida also has no provision to oversee the actions of interpreting agencies. Neither does RID have such a provision. Most interpreting agencies in Florida hire scores of uncertified persons and send them to almost all assignments to which they send certified interpreters. Some agencies pay uncertified persons the same or higher hourly rates they pay to certified interpreters. If they pay the uncertified person a lower rate, they do not adjust the rate they charge the requesting business and do not disclose that the person is not certified.
Can this be considered ethical business practice?
Certification
RID certification is not a guarantee of skill. We all know that RID has serious testing issues. The NIC is a notoriously unreliable measurement of skill, not to mention of ethics and judgment.
You're not an RID fan? You don't trust its testing system? Neither do I. However, until something better comes along RID certification is the only national standard we have. And we must, we MUST have a standard, a portal through which we pass in order to call ourselves professional sign language interpreters and to work as such. Every valid profession has such a standard. No reasonable society would accept a person without an MD or Juris Doctor striking out solo to perform surgery or act as defense attorney at a murder trial.
Yet uncertified persons often interpret solo at the doctor's office, psychiatrist's office, lawyer's office. Other than at conferences and at some longer assignments, we usually do not have a team. Who determines whether the interpreter is facilitating effective communication? At most assignments no one but the deaf client and the interpreter knows sign language. If the interpreter cannot or will not self-monitor, only the deaf client can theoretically act as language monitor. However, as ASL and English are radically different languages, even deaf clients who are proficient speechreaders often cannot effectively compare the source message with the message from the interpreter's hands or mouth. At the end of the assignment everyone goes their way without knowing whether the interpreter rendered the message faithfully and with enough skill that the deaf client understood it.
I recently interpreted for a woman who thought she was going to her doctor for results of some tests. The doctor was shocked. "No, don't you remember at the last appointment I said your tests showed something suspicious? Today we're doing a biopsy." The deaf client explained that the last interpreter was not certified, had inadequate ASL skills, and the client did not understand her, something she mentioned to the doctor at the time. That person was not used to interpret for that client again but now the client was facing a painful biopsy for which she was not prepared. How awful.
So although certified interpreters can also make a mess of an assignment, at least they have been evaluated, judged to have a minimum skill set, must adhere to the NAD-RID Code of Professional Conduct, and if they are not qualified or violate the CPC the client can file a complaint.
Some states have their own assessment. Texas has the BEI. The Florida Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (FRID) administered two diagnostic screenings until October 2013 when RID found some irregularities and ordered them to stop. FRID states on its website "... in following a mandate from our parent organization of the RID, as an affiliate chapter, FRID will not be managing any screening systems nor assigning any credential to work." http://fridcentral.org/certification-screening
It's important to note that the FRID diagnostic screenings were in no way considered "certification". The FRID Quality Assurance Screening (QA) was a diagnostic assessment used to evaluate the skills of apprentice interpreters and provide feedback for further skills development. The FRID Educational Interpreter Evaluation (EIE) was a diagnostic assessment used to evaluate the skills of apprentice interpreters working in educational settings and provide feedback for further skills development. In the absence of continued oversight of the QA and EIE and of requirements to maintain the achieved level or pass to a higher level, previously achieved QA and EIE levels can no longer be considered valid. Yet some Florida "interpreters" call themselves certified because they achieved a QA or EIE level. This is deceiving.
Some states recognize the Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment (EIPA), a tool designed to evaluate the voice-to-sign and sign-to-voice interpreting skills of interpreters who work in the elementary and secondary school classroom setting. Some states require a minimum EIPA 3.5 to interpret in the school system. Those holding an EIPA 4 or above may join RID as certified members and maintain certification as an educational interpreter (ED: K-12) by participating in the RID Certification Maintenance Program (CMP) and by adhering to the NAD-RID Code of Professional Conduct (CPC), enforceable by the RID Ethical Practices System (EPS).
One agency sent an EIPA level 3.5 "interpreter" to team with me at a high level conference. His skills were so inadequate that the client fired him but by then the harm had been done, to the deaf and hearing clients, to the agency, to me.
Certification and Code of Conduct
We must also have a code of conduct, a code of ethics. Such a code, if enforced, protects every community - the Deaf community, interpreting community, hearing community. On a national level and in Florida, only RID certified interpreters are required to adhere to a Code of Conduct, namely the CPC developed by RID in partnership with NAD.
This means that if a person is not RID certified neither the deaf client nor another party has recourse to file a complaint. Of course they can complain to the agency. Is that effective? One local agency has received numerous complaints about an uncertified, unqualified "interpreter" yet continues to send her to all manner of assignments, including police calls, and pays her the highest regular rate it pays to certified interpreters. No, complaining to the agency is not the solution, especially when there is no standard to violate. There have to be clear standards so there are clear violations that can be reported to an overseeing entity.
As an introduction to its Code of Professional Conduct, RID states, "A code of professional conduct is a necessary component to any profession to maintain standards for the individuals within that profession to adhere. It brings about accountability, responsibility and trust to the individuals that the profession serves."
https://www.rid.org/ethics/code-of-professional-conduct/
Why licensure?
Florida currently has no certification program. It also has no grievance system in place to resolve issues regarding unethical or unqualified persons working as interpreters. RID's Ethical Practices System only applies to RID members. Recourse is limited to corrective action or suspension or revocation of certification. Should an RID certified interpreter's certification be revoked by RID due to ethical or professional misconduct, there is nothing to prevent that person from continuing to interpret in Florida.
Previous Florida licensure bills, all of which failed, proposed a tier system. Certified interpreters comprised the top tier. The 2 other tiers did not require certification as they were based on Florida state evaluation systems. As those state evaluation systems no longer exist, licensure would either require the establishment of a state evaluation system or the acceptance of the BEI or other state evaluation system, or interpreters would have to be RID certified interpreters in good standing in order to become licensed to work in the state of Florida.
The Deaf community has been pushing for licensure for years. Back in 2015 the Miami Herald published an article titled Deaf community pushing for state to license interpreters. Licensure continues to be a frequent topic of discussion. Although some interpreters disagree, a significant number of RID certified interpreters also support licensure in Florida.
However a Florida licensure bill is written, it must include minimum certification standards that protect the communities impacted by interpreting services. I support the idea that uncertified persons working as interpreters should have a reasonable period of time to become certified and thus be able to apply for a license. If the person does not have a Bachelor's I know it will take time to get the degree and take the RID certification test. In that case a maximum time of completion should be established and the person should be required to document the steps taken along the path to certification. I do not support the idea that uncertified persons should continue working for years without taking a single step toward becoming certified. This is not elitist. It is professional. We cannot consider ourselves a professional field if we do not insist on a set of standards. The interpreting community in Florida is at best a paraprofessional community. That is not what I signed up for when despite extreme test anxiety I took my first RID test and became certified, when I took my second RID test years later and passed it in order to stay up to date with current testing, when I work to maintain my certification and to improve my skills every single day.
I have written all my legislators and have asked them to sponsor a licensure bill. I encourage every certified interpreter to do the same. You can contact your senators and representatives by clicking the following link: Florida Senators, Representatives, and Congressional District Maps