Brand the Interpreter

Q&A: Associations vs Certifying Bodies

• Mireya Perez • Season 6 • Episode 106

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As we approach the final stretch of Brand the Interpreter's sixth season, I am thrilled to share an answer episode to a question submitted by listener Laura González in Pennsylvania, a query that mirrors many of your own curiosities and experiences. This exchange symbolizes the interactive and dynamic nature of the podcast, where listener engagement has continually shaped the conversation. I hope you find this episode relevant and useful in understanding the world of associations and certifying bodies.
I also encourage you to submit your question to the Brand the Interpreter Podcast for an opportunity to get featured in an upcoming episode.
 
Thank you for joining me today. I'll see you back next episode!

Only on the podcast that shares your stories about our profession!
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Certifying Entities:
NBCMI
CCHI
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Associations:
NAETISL
AAITE

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to another episode of the Brandy interpreter podcast. This is Mireya, your host. If you're new here, if you're a returning listener, welcome back as always. And welcome to the second to the last episode of season six. It's taken me a couple of years to really figure out how long seasons should last here on the podcast. So while we're at the end of season six, technically we're rounding the corner of year four of the podcast I know pretty wild right and while next year I'll be introducing an entirely new format to the podcast, much of the rest of the podcast will remain the same, including questions from you, the audience. Today's question was submitted by Laura all the way out from Pennsylvania. Hi, laura, take a listen.

Speaker 2:

Hola, mireya, my name is Laura, I'm from Bethlehem, pennsylvania, and I wanted to thank you so much for your podcast, brandy interpreter. It's really been an anchor for me as I navigate my new career in the wonderful world of medical and educational interpreting. My question for you is how can a new interpreter make sense of all of the different associations and councils that are available for medical, educational and legal interpreters, in addition to the CCHI or the NBCMI, which offer national certification for medical interpreters? There are many, many more dozens in fact, if you include all of the different state-based associations, and I'm hoping that someone like you or another veteran interpreter can help guide us newbies into understanding what distinguishes these associations from one another and cómo podemos sacar el jugo, so to speak, which, minimally, should we become members of and invest in? It seems like a lot of them have missions that overlap one another and progressing forward and professionalizing the field of interpreting, and so it's hard for me to decide which ones to actually join.

Speaker 1:

Ah, yes, laura the good old, but which association should I join? Question, the question that typically comes up around the beginning of our professional interpreting careers. I have my own recommendations for you after over a decade of being in the profession. However, my approach for these questions are to also allow you the opportunity to hear directly from individuals that are out there in the industry and having navigated some of these very same questions at the beginning of their careers. And because you happen to mention NBCMI, cchi, a-a-i-t-e and ATISL, these are the specific guests that I invited here today, so let's take a listen to what our guests would like to share with us today, shall we?

Speaker 3:

Hello, my name is Gustavo Negrete and I'm the chair of the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters, as commonly referred to as the NBCMI, and this is our response to some of the questions for the brand interpreter listeners. So one of the questions that we usually get is you know, what type of benefits do we offer members? Now, the thing is that we have to remember that the National Board isn't like a traditional association. You don't pay a fee and then automatically you're brought into the association. They're actually a credentialing and certifying organization. In other words, we provide a process for those persons, candidates, who are wanting to become certified medical interpreters, to become said certified medical interpreters. We actually have two pathways. We have the language specific pathway, which are the certified medical interpreter certifications, which we offer six languages for that, and then we also have another pathway, which is called the HUBCMI, and those are for all those languages that are not part of those original, those course six that we offer full certification, in which, if in case you're wondering, those are Spanish, mandarin, cantonese, vietnamese, russian and Korean. Now, as far as the benefits are concerned, well, the benefits of being a CMI are, of course, those things, those types of benefits that you get on a very professional level, like I myself am a CMI Spanish and I can tell you, if it wasn't for certification, I probably would not have landed my first, second or third direct client. And so, really, if you're looking at the benefit of becoming certified, and that's really it, you become marketable, you become more desirable, for sure, when it comes to employment, and, of course, you have a certification that supports that.

Speaker 3:

Now, how do we contribute to professional development? Well, the National Board doesn't offer continuing education, at least not directly. But we have a what you would consider a parent organization, which is the International Medical Interpreters Association, that actually has a webinar series called Lifelong Learning Webinars and they offer that for free to members and, of course, the National Board is a contributor to those lifelong webinars. You can go back this year and you can see that the National Board has participated in a few of those webinars for the Lifelong Webinar Series. So, coming back to the conversation of professional development, so what the National Board does is support conference organizations, conference organizers and, of course, non-conference organizations as well, by providing continuing education at said conferences, for example, where big contributors to some of the biggest conferences, like the CHIA conference, which is actually going to be in May of next year, plug in for them. We also support other organizations like the ATA, cate, umcha and other organizations that put on these educational conferences for interpreters. In addition to participating as presenters, we also are oftentimes sponsors of a lot of these organizations, like, for example, one of the most recent conferences, which was the LEO conference. We were actually gold sponsors of that two-day conference, and so we're always looking to work with and collaborate with organizations who offer training and, of course, support to interpreters. Now you may be wondering specifically well, how does this lead or what's the link between that and professional development? Is that all of these conferences, these workshops, actually do go towards professional development for our hub CMI's and CMI's? Of course, as a matter of fact, this is one of those requirements that we have for continuing to have the CMI certification or the hub CMI.

Speaker 3:

The NBCMI has been working really hard behind the scenes actually this year with a lot of different organizations that not only advocate for the profession meaning interpreting as a whole but, of course, are a little more narrowly focused specifically on healthcare and or medical interpretation. Now, because I can't really discuss the scope of work that we've participated in, I can mention for sure that there were some, that we were invited to participate in several conversations with the Office for Civil Rights, for example, and the Office of Minority Health. And then, of course, we had participated in the call for expert input when Health and Human Services was re-evaluating some of their policies. For example, one of such thing was, of course, the revision of qualified interpreter and then, of course, some of the changes to ACA section 1557. We participated in those conversations as well. And then, of course, there's on the local level. We send in papers for participating in amicus briefs whenever there's questions about language access or perhaps there's consideration by legislators to either dissolve, reduce or in some way inhibit or prohibit or at least restrict in some fashion, language access.

Speaker 3:

So those are some of the things that we do on the NBCMI, but I would say that some of the more significant accomplishments that the NBCMI has accomplished was actually being the first organization to offer a pathway for certification for medical interpreters and, of course, in as many languages as we offer. I would say that's a very significant accomplishment. There we also added last year the HUBCMI, which was also quite a feat because, as you can imagine, we have to go through the verification process and that actually takes a quite an extensive amount of time, believe it or not. As much as I wish we could quickly add on additional languages, it actually does take quite a bit of time to actually get everything done in that sense, but I would say that some of the how this ties into some of our initiatives is that we are always looking to expand and, of course, add other languages to our list of languages that we offer full certification in. We're also looking to participate more openly, of course, with organizations and other associations that support medical interpreters as well. Some of the things that are coming down the pipe, of course, is, without divulging too much is that we have plans in the set for the immediate future to be able to support the interpreting community by forming strategic partnerships, to be able to provide more training, to be able to provide more scholarships and then also to, of course, promote certification.

Speaker 3:

How does the MVCMI keep current on all of that is happening? Well, we keep current by many a means. To be quite honest with you, we keep track of things that are going around on the NIH side, for example, the National Institute of Health and Human Services. We also keep up with trends of things that are happening with CMS, for example. Well, some of it is, of course, being subscribers and, of course, in and engaging a conversation with the you know, thinking macro level, of course, the big organizations, the ones that are the powers that be per se when it comes to these types of health related topics and, of course, health related anything really.

Speaker 3:

We also keep a rest of things by, of course, engaging the CMI's on social media through email inquiry.

Speaker 3:

Of course, we also keep abreast by participating in conferences, mike, for example, one of the more recent, the most recent conference that we participated in, leo, had a lot of information about artificial intelligence.

Speaker 3:

We also participate in surveys and inquiries about, you know, those types of situations like the one that's circulating now is the survey from the AI task force, which is, honestly, it's super important to support organizations in general.

Speaker 3:

So, even if it's not the MCMI, please be sure to support other organizations that are always on the front lines for interpreters. And, of course, we have our channels, social media Facebook, linkedin primarily soon to come Instagram and all sorts of other fun stuff, and those are other ways that we actually disseminate a lot of the information that even we come across and another way that we keep in abreast of things is by listening to Brandy interpreter and all of her guests, which highlight very specific aspects of interpreting and different fields in different areas and how those fields are being impacted by any number of situations. To find out more about the MCMI, please visit our website certifiedmedicalinterpretersorg. You can follow us on Facebook. You could locate us under the same heading, certified medical interpreters, and we're also on LinkedIn as the National Board of Certification of Medical Interpreters, which you could find us under NBCMI.

Speaker 1:

Just to be clear and full transparency, I did not request a shout out from NBCMI, but I sincerely appreciate it. Next on the list we have CCHI.

Speaker 4:

Hi, my name is Johanna Parker, I am the vice chair of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters and I'm here to answer questions posed by Brandy interpreter listeners. So I think what's important to understand is that CCHI, or the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters, is not a membership association. We're a certifying entity. We don't have annual dues. Our goal is to elevate the status of interpreters among healthcare professionals and the status of medical interpreters among other interpreters and language professionals. So, as a certifying body, even though we don't have members, we interact with our candidates and our certificates regularly through surveys, events, e-news, social media, et cetera, and we continuously seek their input on our policies and involve them in test development. Also, it's interesting to note that the content of all of our exams is created solely by our certificates. So, because CCHI is not an association, any opportunity for continuing education or professional development that we offer is available to all of our certificates and the public in general. So we offer free and low-cost training opportunities with CEUs for our certificates. These include webinars, online modules, and that includes performance-based modules. This is a requirement for all of our certificates that some of their continuing education be actually working on interpreting skills, so we make sure to offer some of those opportunities. The only opportunity that we offer for certificates is participation in test development projects, and we actually award them continuing education units for that, and that's really a fantastic opportunity to learn about exam creation and think about how tests are formed, and I did it before I was a commissioner and I found it really fascinating. We held a virtual conference on November 18th that offered CEUs, and in April we're going to be holding a conference live in person in Houston. That will be a place for us to, number one, offer skill-building webinars, but also to really talk about the future of our profession and where we're going. It's our 15th anniversary and so we're looking back 15 years, but we're also going to start looking forward for the next 15.

Speaker 4:

And as CCHI doesn't have members, we advocate for the profession, and we saw this during the pandemic. For example, cchi was the first organization to issue a statement about the safety of interpreters in healthcare and the need for PPE for them. We also invite experts to participate in our community conversations, youtube series, which is where we bring together important figures in our field about topics like the measurement of interpreter productivity and fatigue, the use of simultaneous interpreting in the field, challenges of interpreting for the deaf and hard of hearing communities, immigration, ai and interpreting all of these topics that affect really everyone in our profession and, of course, most importantly, the people that we serve. Cchi has also participated, or representatives of CCHI have participated, in state legislative projects on interpreter certification. We've done that in Colorado, oregon and Washington and really I think that the main way that we advocate for the interest and rights of the profession of healthcare interpreting is just through certification. With our accredited certification, we are committed to raising the standard and the status of medical interpreters and therefore improve the services provided to speakers with limited English proficiency and help level the playing field and get them access to the care they need.

Speaker 4:

Cchi's biggest achievement is the creation and rollout of a novel language neutral performance exam for interpreting, which is used along with high language proficiency standards as part of our core CHIP or core CHI performance exam. So I'll explain what I mean by non-language specific performance-based. So across the board, in court interpreting and healthcare interpreting, up until now, there are certification exams for specific languages that are performance-based. So CCHI has an oral exam for Spanish, arabic and Mandarin interpreters. What about all of the other languages? So of course, we would love to and, in the future, hope to develop more language-specific interpreting exams to use in our certification processes. But there's always going to be that next language that doesn't yet have an exam and, frankly, there are some languages that just never will.

Speaker 4:

And so, historically, the only way to start to assess the credentials of those interpreters or the skills of those interpreters is through a knowledge-based exam or written exam. And so that is that those exams have existed for a long time for healthcare and medical interpreters, for court interpreters, et cetera, and they're important because they show that the interpreter knows about the ethics of interpreting, they have some of the vocabulary needed for interpreting, but it doesn't actually show that the person has the ability to interpret. It shows that they know about interpreting. So CCHI did a research study and the results have been validated that we are able to test in an English-only format the sub-skills of interpreting, the cognitive processes that are required and combined, that make up the interpreting process essentially. So with that we developed an exam that is part of our CCHIP credential and that means that for languages for which there isn't an oral certification exam, they are still being tested on skills that are indicators of their ability to actually interpret, which means they're going to be providing better services. So that is our biggest accomplishment to date. We've just rolled it out this year and we're working on awareness raising among interpreters, administrators, major TNI associations around the value and importance of this CCHIP certification and certification in general. Also worth noting we're going to be sunsetting our core CCHI credential, which is the written-only credential, in the future Not immediately, no need to panic if that's the one you have, but we will be sunsetting it. So we encourage all core CCHI interpreters to get their core CCHIP certification and that way in the future all certified healthcare interpreters will have been tested on their actual skills. And then we're also thinking about where we go next in the medium term. So developing new exams are very expensive, but we're committed to growing certification and especially our accredited certifications. We aren't sure what path we're going to take, but maybe we'll work on creating language-specific certification in more languages. Maybe we'll look at certification in different specialties, maybe a master's level certification to demonstrate an even higher level of skill. Maybe some certification for interpreter services administrators to show that they understand and have a really strong understanding of what it takes to organize and administer a strong language access program in a hospital, for example. Who knows. None of this is on the books. None of this is official. This is just brainstorming to think about where we're going to go next.

Speaker 4:

To maintain our accreditation, cchi is required to do a national job task analysis survey every six to seven years and build our exams based on the results. So that means that we actually send out surveys to working healthcare interpreters. They don't have to be certified, they can be certified. They don't have to be just working interpreters to find out what they're doing in their day-to-day work and based on that, we create our exams, because we need a certification exam to reflect the work being done in the field. So we did our third job task analysis survey in 2022. And this year we updated our exams.

Speaker 4:

Furthermore, our commissioners and managing director are active leaders in the field. This means that we regularly participate in various collaborative projects like the association advocacy group hosted by ALC, where CCHI participated along with other associations, or participates along with other associations like ATA, aaite, the interpreting safe AI task force, etc. We've also participated in listening sessions by the Office of Minority Health and others. And, of course, our commissioners are very active attending and presenting at industry conferences like ATA and CIHC California Health Care Interpreting Association, the Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters and Translators, and on and on. I could give you an entire list of acronyms, but I won't. We also hold quarterly Zoom huddles or informal meetings with language access managers. This is called our National Language Access Leaders Huddle. And we have another huddle with interpreter trainers. And so there we learn about the challenges, successes and innovations that these stakeholders are facing and observing and achieving, and we also are able to share with them CCHI's new initiatives. And we don't only stay current with the trends, but we also seek to set standards for the industry and envision the future and how we can advance. So I'll plug it again Our second National Certification Summit will be on April 6th of next year and we'll focus on setting the course for the profession for the next 15 years.

Speaker 4:

So for interpreters who are looking to develop professionally, to interact with their peers, to contribute to the growth of our profession, I think it's really important to join professional associations. It's not an either, or it's not get certified by CCHI or join the ATA. No, it's both. And in terms of which associations to join, of course, it really depends on where you live, your specific interests, et cetera, and here I'm speaking completely as an individual. Cchi is completely neutral, has no recommendations for which associations you should join, because we are a certifying body. But if there is a regional interpreting association translating an interpreting association where you live that's active, it's a good idea to join that to know what's happening in your region, as well as paying attention to the national organizations. In particular, the ATA is the biggest national organization and what I love about the ATA is that it brings together everyone, and so you can learn a lot about what's happening in other parts of our profession. In healthcare, I think the National Council on Interpreting in Healthcare is a really important one that sets some good standards. But again, these are just my personal thoughts.

Speaker 4:

This is not an official CCHI position and really it's also just a matter of what you see. You don't have to join an association site unseen. Check out their website, see what their social media presence is like, how they're interacting online, and if it speaks to you, if it seems interesting to you, then absolutely, by all means, join. To learn more about CCHI, about the certification process, about continuing education opportunities and about our huddles for leaders or trainers, please look at our website cchicertificationorg. We also have social media presence. You can search for CCHI certification on Facebook. Our Instagram account is CCHI certified. You can also search for us on YouTube, which is where we have our community conversations and also where we share videos from some of our online events.

Speaker 1:

That was very informative. Would you agree, now that we've taken the time to listen to the two certifying bodies for medical interpreters, let's pivot into the educational field, a brand new specialization that, while not necessarily new in its existence, it is new in the development of standardization and professionalization. So let's begin with Nattissel.

Speaker 5:

My name is Anna Soler.

Speaker 5:

I am the chairperson of Nattissel, the National Association of Educational Translators and Interpreters of Spoken Languages and this is an answer to a question posted by Brandy Interpreter. So membership benefits collectively contribute to the professional growth of our Nattissel members by enhancing their knowledge, their skills in professional standing within the educational translation and interpretation community. And I'd like to share a few examples. Our Nattissel members, for example, are involved as subject matter experts in the National Certification Pilot Test for Spoken Language Interpreters and they're actually helping us to develop our written test questions and scripts for our oral test. Our members have also participated in our job task analysis, which helped to define the skills, the knowledge and abilities that characterize a professional spoken language interpreter and education, and also helped us with the process of validating our code of ethics two years ago by participating in focus groups, analyzing survey results and review and interpreter job descriptions. So they're definitely hands on. We also offer monthly professional opportunities for interpreters and translators and education We've been doing that for the past three years, as well as three virtual conferences with national and international guest speakers, and one thing that we really are proud of is that when we go through the guest speaker selection process. Our priority is our member pool and overall we were looking at our statistics just now about 95% of those who have presented in our monthly webinars and conferences are Nattissel members who are willing to share their knowledge and skills, and we really love the fact that we've been able to mentor them throughout the process. Likewise, all of our course instructors are Nattissel members, who have received mentoring and coaching to really launch their careers as course facilitators, not only with us, but with other organizations as well. And, of course, our members benefit from discounts on all of these professional opportunities and, of course, receive scholarships when funding is available, to be able to not only participate in our professional development activities but also those offered by other organizations.

Speaker 5:

We have a member portal, which is a great opportunity for our members to engage with each other in small groups and also access specific resources that have been created for their purpose, their skill. We have different committees that are working on specific resources that members have asked us for, and so we house them in this particular portal. And so we also are members of different organizations, and one example is the joint national committee for languages and the National Council for Languages and International Studies, and this commitment and this engagement with different organizations has helped to engage and actually create a wider network where our members can participate. So those are some of the many benefits that we offer we're actually going to be offering in 2024, we have quite a bit of surprises that I'm not able to share quite yet but one of the professional development opportunities that we will offer in 2024 is a series of language specific practice sessions, because our interpreters and actually our members have provided feedback on the fact that we need a little bit more practice. We're grateful for the lecture, for the theory, but we really want to have that hands on practice. So we'll be offering language specific sessions where interpreters can practice consecutive simultaneous note taking and also translation and education with language bearers. So we have Arabic, spanish and we're about to announce a couple more languages with the purpose of expanding glossaries and expanding networks, really with our interpreters. Of course, we also apply and obtain CEUs from different organizations such as CCHI and ATA, with the purpose of engaging interpreters not only who work in the educational setting, but we understand that interpreters in education touch many different settings, such as legal and medical, and so through the CEU process, we want to engage all of those other professionals who are also working in schools, who may have experience in other areas of expertise.

Speaker 5:

One thing that I did want to mention in terms of our professional development is that our opportunities are not exclusive to interpreters in education, and that's what really makes us different. We have very much in mind our stakeholders, who are linguistically diverse, families, educators, and also interpreters and translators. So, for example, we received a grant from the Missouri Developmental Disabilities Council to launch a series of professional development sessions for school leaders and educators on how to work with interpreters, because we really feel that the training and the collaboration when it comes to interpretation and translation in K-12 and also early childhood really has to come from many different angles. So we involve the school leaders, educators and everything that we do regarding professional development. We have also partnered with a couple of organizations to provide training for linguistically diverse families, and this is something that we're very passionate about, because we're really given them a lot of information about their rights and responsibilities when it comes to language access, so they can self-advocate, because really, as we know, as interpreters we cannot do that part, but we can share information with families to be able to do that on their own.

Speaker 5:

The TISL members, as I mentioned include linguistically diverse families, interpreters, translators, and school leaders and educators and as such, we really remain in touch with our diverse audiences to hear their concerns, their challenges, but also their opportunities to work towards the same goals that we have. And so we engage all of our key stakeholders in conversations about language access and really connect families to work collectively to improve that communication in school settings, as well as, of course, contributing to setting the standards for professional interpreters and translators in schools. So we work with partner organizations, for example, to train families, like I mentioned, on language access rights and responsibilities. We have developed self-empowerment tools to help raise the voice of our families and raise their concerns about language access in their school communities and really understand the implications of collaborating with untrained interpreters. So we advocate for the interests of school leaders and educators by supporting them with research-based information on creating language access plans, for example, best practices to hire, to qualify and train interpreters and translators, and education and sharing topics about how to remain involved in a conversation with a family when an interpreter is present to support communication. So, again, the training, the professional development, really corresponds or connects with the same stakeholders and what they tell us is important to them. So, of course, these issues are important to our school leaders, our educators, not just because language access is a civil right, but also because accurate and complete communication supports that family engagement and student achievement. And so, lastly, of course, we advocate for the interests and rights of our interpreters and translators by getting their input on the development of resources to support their work. For example, we have a series of best practices, fact sheets available on our website, and these are tips that all of our members have gathered and these are members who live and breathe this work every day and know exactly what it's like and will be publishing additional training tools and tip sheets for interpreters and translators to really help with their work and self-advocate in their settings as well.

Speaker 5:

So we can proudly say that we cannot name only one significant accomplishment. To start, we validated our code of ethics two years ago as a first step to initiate this development of a pilot certification test for spoken language interpreters. We based our work on already existing code of ethics and standards of practice for medical sign language and legal interpreters, and also on the work already accomplished by the Minnesota Department of Education and then the University of Minnesota years ago. So we were not the first, and we wanted to make sure that we expanded on what was already present by conducting different focus groups and surveys with our stakeholders, again to give us this initial overview of the concerns, the challenges and the opportunities in this field of interpreting and translation in early childhood and also K to 12. So this really gave us a good organization, direction and vision.

Speaker 5:

Of course, the completion of our job task analysis. I think it's another great example of the teamwork that we have displayed over the years. Our stakeholders were definitely involved and, most importantly, our linguistically diverse families had the opportunity to really participate in this whole process of defining the skills, the knowledge and abilities of interpreters and translators in education. And you know we have been selected. This is something that we're very proud of. We have been selected as a primary course developer and evaluator for an entire state in the state of Massachusetts, and really we're consulting with other state departments of education on the training and qualification of school-based interpreters and also freelance interpreters who work in schools. And so we're really, you know, proud of the work that we have done, the proud, proud of the work that shows that we have been able to manage large grants and a great you know teamwork, definitely in everything that we have done so far. So we are members of various organizations, not only for school leaders, educators, but also parent advocacy organizations, and they, of course, represent our stakeholders and really give us the voice to determine what other resources we need to develop or what other visions we need to follow. And so we're very attentive and we get to hear directly from our audiences directly on those challenges and opportunities and concerns, sometimes about language access.

Speaker 5:

In our setting Our NACISL ambassadors or members we now represent 31 states and seven countries, and so they bring information to us to help us shape and prioritize the resources and information that we develop or help to disseminate Our resources, and this is really important, something that we're also very proud of. Our resources and materials are not created because our leadership team determines that they're important. Our resources and the format that we utilize to share them in our evaluation processes to determine their value come from the ground up, meaning that they originate from the same communities that we serve, and so, as a result, we have what we have available on our website, for example, and what we offer to our members, and our resources that are practical, that are applicable to the work of the interpreter and the translator on the field, whether they're school-based or freelance professionals, and really to the families and educators that we serve, because really that's the bottom line to make sure that our families and educators have the best interpreters that they can have. So we are thrilled to welcome you as a member, but a lot of our information is housed on our website. It's wwwnacislorg.

Speaker 5:

We have lots of resources. We have been told that we are very generous with our resources. We have lots of free glossaries and information for interpreters and translators and education, but also for educators and also our families. I'm happy to welcome you as a member, but if you're not a member, you still have a wealth of information that you can find on our website and happy to answer any questions that you may have about our organization and more.

Speaker 5:

I absolutely thank you, mirage, for the opportunity to share this information. Like I said, there's a wealth of information on our website, but we often do not have the opportunity to really share what's going on behind the curtain sometimes and really all of the initiatives that we have been going on. We have a lot of things that I wish I could share more, but we have a lot of resources that we're currently developing that we're hoping to launch in 2024, so we're really excited about what's coming for us and, of course, our pilot certification test needs to be done by 2024, so we're hoping that all of you who are interpreters in education are there volunteer to take the test to make sure that it is as valid and as fair as we can possibly make it and give us your feedback as we go through the process. So thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Lots of exciting stuff. That was Natissal. Now we'll move into AAITE. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 6:

Hi, I am Giovanna Carriero-Contreras and I have the honor to be the chair of the American Association of Interpreters and Translators in Education, and I have the pleasure to be here and speak to the brand interpreters' listeners that are interested to learn more about our association. Let me delve first of all in what are the benefits that associations can share with their members and, before talking specifically for AAITE, I would like to really bring up the point that members are a benefit to the association as a whole, as the value of the association brings benefits to the members. I look at these equations always as a key intake, because the associations that work the best are the ones that put themselves at the service of the members that they address. So in our case, at AAITE, we address primarily interpreters and translators in education, but we also consider, in everything that we do, program administrators, school administrators, language access coordinators, interpreting and translation coordinators, managers in the districts and in the schools. So among the benefits that our memberships offer, we can count first of all the frequent meets or meetups that we have.

Speaker 6:

The one that I think is the most valuable, equally at the level of the association and the members, are our edu-talks. We actually promote a conversation regarding a certain topic of interest, and these ideas always come from our members, and the conversation for us is really to learn about what interpreters and translators do around the country. Let's remember that we still do not have an organic approach or a consistent approach to our professions, and we're really still fighting against the meets or the stereotypes of what a translator or an interpreter can do or a bilingual staff can do with the addition of interpreting and translation duties. So the edu-talks are once a month and they are nine across the year, and that's where we really get feedback. The other benefits that we provide are the discounted fees for other learning opportunities. So we run two major edu-workshops during the year and these are addressing both interpreters and translators in separate sessions, and the recordings of all our opportunities are available to members. A lot of our members are taking advantage of the recording. However, please remember that the association thrives on the active collaboration with their members. Lastly, the most important thing that we have started doing last year is to organize the edu-conference, and we started our first edu-con 2023 in Denver, colorado. That exceeded our expectations. Why? Because that was really the moment where I think it was tangibly received, as this is something for us, the edu-conference 2023 had a special significance because it was really the effort of all the members and the leadership the chairs of the committees that had worked together. This is something that we're repeating every year and in a second I'm going to tell you more about that.

Speaker 6:

If you look at our memberships, we also have several types of a membership. We hope that you can involve your districts and your schools, because we firmly believe the changes can only be made from bottom up and top down. In a nutshell, I can tell you that our membership menu items include you have a seat at the table. You can talk about what's going on in your district, in your state, by sharing with us the edu-talks. You have voice at the national level, because AAIT is well connected with a number of other organizations and therefore we voice your opinions, your suggestions, your work at the very national level and it does not go unseen. You have a knock-off access to edu-talks, so they're free for you and you can also re-listen to the introduction part of the topic before we break into breakout rooms. You have discounts on our professional development opportunities and with this, we have the edu-workshops, we have the edu-conference, but we also have special events like the one that we run on language access. You have access to listserv that is only limited to our members, and we have had a very important exchange, exchanges or conversations around cut-tools, around best practices, around resources. We also have a public directory that is for the community at large, so not only our members, but also those that are interested in understanding what AAIT does and to be preview of our communications. And, lastly, we also have a member recognition space where you can download your member badge to show that you made your commitment to the greater purpose of these professions, on LinkedIn, on your social media, etc.

Speaker 6:

I myself am a member of a number of different organizations and every year when I start rethinking of renewing my memberships, I always think what's in it for me? What is that this association really does for me? And there are a couple of points that I always try to evaluate. The number one how do I participate in this association as a person and as a professional? I profoundly believe that if I do not take advantage of my seat at the table, then I need to get whatever comes to me, but if I instead am proactive and proactive does not mean that you have to work on this, you know 100 hours a year. Think that if any member did a little bit, then we push and advance a little bit farther and a little bit faster together. So let's go back to what I evaluate. So does the mission and the vision of the association aligns with my purposes? Do they propose or make propositions about what needs to be accomplished for me to become a more and more valuable professional in a way that I can sell my services better, but also in a competent way? Do I learn from them how to better value myself in the eye of my stakeholders? Because each one of us has stakeholders. I work in a school and the teachers that I work with, the families that I work with, the administrators that I work with those are all stakeholders of the services that I provide. How do I interact with them? What am I learning from these associations that teach me or educate me or improve my skills in doing that as well? So, as you can hear, I'm making a difference between me developing as a professional meaning in my day-to-day services, but me also developing the soft skills, and that's where I think AAIT does a very good job.

Speaker 6:

What we want to foster with our members is really to develop the awareness for the value that we bring to the table and how to speak about this. So, if you pay attention to all the venues where AAIT members have participated, we always talk about how we should be and should be talking as professionals. In other words, advocacy for us is a very important part of our mission. Advocacy is not something that just gets dumped on our lap. Advocacy comes from the ability to speak not only on behalf of each of us personally, but also in a way that integrates with the overall purpose of the professions, both on the translation or the interpreting side. Let me be a little bit more factual so that people can relate to what I'm saying and I myself can relate to my own words and give you a practical example.

Speaker 6:

We are organizing a Up on the Hill Advocacy Day for May the 2nd, which is the day before we launched our EDUCon 2024. Going up to the hill will give us really the opportunity to be vocal, to be heard about why language services are important, why funding for schools and districts is important. But we're going to lead up to that teaching, sharing, educating our members on really how to talk about these advocacy initiatives so that you can do whatever can be done in your daily life. Another big initiative that we are part of is with SAFE AI Task Force. For those that do not know what the task force is about, please go to SAFE-A-I-T-Forg and that stands for SAFE Artificial Intelligence Task Force. You will see that the task force is at the moment running a survey that is collecting data around how interpreting services are used and why they're beneficial and why AI can impact negatively the delivery of these services. If guidelines are now set and defined pretty quickly.

Speaker 6:

If you look at that website, there is so much importance on reaching out to diverse communities, and that's because people like us know how to advocate, to bring those issues up. So this is the type of advocacy that the AAIT wants to foster with their members, because we, as a profession, cannot wait for others to do it on our behalf. We, in our circles, cannot wait that the laws and regulations come down to us and expect that we can deliver our services with our ethics, with our protocols, with our boundaries, in limits that are created by those that know nothing about our services. This is because, again, advocacy is another of those situations where you have bi-directionality, is give and take. We educate and get educated, informed every single day, and this is really what AAIT is about Not only leading the way to professionalize the professions, but create professionals that can advocate and can be the agent of changes in their own realities.

Speaker 6:

Aait, just as a name, will never make any change, the same way as no other association can. The strength of every association is the membership and the members that step up to be leaders in committees, at the board, spoke person, advisory board groups, etc. So there is a place for everybody. In other words, regardless of the time that we have to devote. This same passion is what has really motivated and inspired the work that we do at AAIT. Aait is not the result of the work of one, and from day one we have always worked towards national consensus or national collaboration, and I personally like to preach we walk the walk and talk the talk together, whether we agree or disagree. Sometimes agreements come out of a lot of disagreements.

Speaker 6:

We have accomplished quite a bit this year and the two main accomplishments that I would like everybody to go to the website and download and use, abuse, reuse with anyone you know in your districts Are the report on the job task analysis. Everybody should read that report because you can understand what is the status quo of our professions and what came out of that survey. A second survey was also run, because the data of that job task analysis kind of created other questions and now the job task analysis committee is evaluating those results. The other one is what we have recently announced so I am going to say this with the most cheerful voice on behalf of the AAIT ethics and standards committee is really the publication of the first national code of ethics and standards of practice for interpreters and a national code of ethics and standards of practice for trans-ethics. The practice is very long. However, it is very informative. Every single piece, every single paragraph of these prefaces is important for you to understand where we stand as professionals in our school districts.

Speaker 6:

Other initiatives that we are going to run for next year are an entire set of resources that are going to revolve around the codes of ethics, because they can now stand only as isolated documents. We need to live them. We need to really understand, adjust their reading and say, oh, be accurate or be confidential. Nothing in a code of ethics or standards of practice leaves isolated from other components, and so the prefaces give you an example, but we are going to build other resources going into the new year. We are also going to publish soon best practices that our committees have worked on for a long time, and obviously we are preparing for the eduCon 2024, not only the conference, the advocacy on the Hill. We are going to start a series of advocacy workshops that really tend to train, educate, inform our members, to develop this advocacy aptitude that we need, because it has to permeate the way we talk about it. I sometimes start talking about us and what we do with Congress representative, representative of the House and I need to make an adjustment on the way we talk. Some understand my passion with some they're more quiet and I have to understand what other type of words I use, and so this is also important in order to send your message across what is in the future for members in terms of state, current industry trends.

Speaker 6:

We do not live in silos. We are not islands. Our communities needs the expertise that come from learning what happens out there. The fact that I work in Aurora, colorado, for Collins, colorado, or wherever you are, does not mean that what we go through happens only to us, and this has been the time, for a long time now, where we need to really learn. That, I think can no longer be applied to us as professionals, because there is a profession out there. This is what AAIT has been preaching for years. We are such a profession that we need it to be visible and that's why we brought it up years ago and AAIT was born.

Speaker 6:

I also want to underscore the fact that AAIT keeps abreast of what's current in the industry by participating in different national efforts with different organizations. So, for example, as you can see from the acknowledgments of our codes of ethics, we have actually interacted with other associations, and the fact that you don't see the names of all the associations on that acknowledgment does not mean that we have not had conversations, but it just meant that it was not the right place or the right competence for them to participate in that effort. But we regularly meet with leadership at AAIT, at the Association of Language Companies, at ALC, with MAJIT, the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Trans Leaders, and with the two medical certifications organizations, cchi and NBCMI. I know that the big elephant in the room remains training and certification. Aait is on the path to certification but, as everything else, we do require prior steps.

Speaker 6:

So that will be the other benefit that you're looking at down the road and it's coming, it's coming. We are just checking all the boxes to get there and, by the way, if you worked with us, we could get to that checkbox much, much faster, so I hope that you now have a better idea. I would love to go into much bigger detail for every of the points that I have touched on. However, time is of essence and your time is precious, and I do thank you for listening to me and to the voice of AAIT. Our email is info at AAITorg, my email is chair at AAITorg, and our website is there to support you, to give you information, and in the meantime, it's also being redone, so that's the other thing coming up. Thank you for listening and thank you, brandy interpreter, for giving us this opportunity.

Speaker 1:

Happy holidays, well there you have it, folks, the voices behind some of the associations and organizations that are out there for interpreters, and perhaps you're even thinking. Well, I'm still undecided, because they all now sound great, and you're right, they completely do. I'd like to chime in and give you some of my personal recommendations when making such hard decisions. A lot of the things that I'll mention right now actually were mentioned during today's episode, so it'll be a recap. The very first thing that perhaps you will want to consider is the overarching theme, or rather, in this case, what is the mission or vision of these associations or organizations that you also align to? As you begin your journey in the field, you'll want to consider your own interests and values and then try to find associations that align with them. Oftentimes, knowing these things makes it clear for you to know what you don't want to align yourself with, and, while mission and vision statements may sound similar, really look into what their overall or overarching theme is that the association is focusing on. Once you have identified an association that has similar interests or a mission similar to your values, look for them.

Speaker 1:

On social media, when utilized strategically and in order to communicate information to the masses, social media is actually a very powerful tool. Look for what the associations or organizations are sharing so what is the content that they share with their followers and then also look for how they're engaging with their following. This particular element may not necessarily be as important to everyone. It just happened to be an important element for me to identify how they engaged with not just an in-person audience, but also an online audience. We receive communication in so many different ways and a lot of people engage in communicating in a variety of different ways, and social media should not necessarily be something that is overlooked. Many people do receive their information from social media, ask questions based on the communication or the information that is being posted, so this particular element just happened to be something important for me. When I was trying to follow or just to try to see what type of information was being shared, I was always looking for these details. Of course, if you have specific questions, there's always the email address. You can always send out an email with your specific question and see what responses you get back. Browsing through their website is always helpful just to identify the type of information that is being shared, upcoming events or even conferences that they may be holding, and speaking of conferences.

Speaker 1:

Consider attending conferences even before you are a member. Don't feel that you must become a member in order to be able to attend the conferences. Granted, you don't get the member discount, so it could be a little bit more expensive, but at least you get a feel for the type of conference that is put together and the type of people that attend these conferences. I personally do practice this approach before determining whether or not I'd like to be a member of the association. So consider this as a strategy before making your decision. And, of course, lastly, the location might be something that's important to you. So if you want to find something that is local, that maybe continuously puts together events that are close to you and proximity, then maybe this is also another determining factor. But again, consider that just because you make a decision now doesn't mean that you can't change your mind later, and that, my dear Laura, is the response in a one hour nutshell.

Speaker 1:

While my intention is not to give you the answer, I do, however, intend to be able to give you as much information as possible for you to consider in order to make an educated decision. Thank you for submitting your question because, as always, your question could be someone else's question and now you've helped me be able to provide the space for a response to those particular inquiries that we have, especially at the beginning of our interpreting profession. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the guests that were on the show today. Thank you, nbcmi, cchi, natissel and AAITE for accepting my invitation to come on the show and be able to offer a little bit more information about their respective associations or organizations. I want to thank you once again for joining me today on this second to the last episode of the year, and I hope you come back again next week for the very last episode of Season 6 of the Brandy Interpreter podcast. In the meantime, I hope you have a very merry Christmas and if Christmas isn't your thing, I hope you enjoy your holidays Until next time.

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