• Interpreting in Mental Health Settings Workshop – 4 December 2007
• Next BSMHD meeting – Edinburgh 11 December 2007
• Healthy Deaf Minds
• National Deaf Services Conference Day on 15 April 2008
• Health of deaf people
• ASLI CONFERENCE ‘Looking Back – Going Forward’
• Somerset NHS Trust "Social Worker: Mental Health and Sensory Loss"
• Ageing and Deaf Conference April 08
• Mental Health Act 2007 - campaign update from Mind
  
  

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  BSMHD Interpreting in Mental Health Settings Workshop – A Practice Profession Approach

  4 December 2007, Britannia Street Conference Centre, Kings Cross

  Presented by: Robyn Dean, MA, C.I./C.T., of the faculty of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Robert Pollard, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and director of the Deaf Wellness Center.

  In order for the interpreting profession to advance, it must conceptualize interpreting work in a different way. It must articulate and embrace a new schema – a schema that is expansive enough to include not only the technical aspects of interpreting work but the human and social aspects as well. Since their first publication in 2001, which described the basic structure of their Demand-Control Schema for Interpreting Work, Dean and Pollard have postulated that interpreting is a practice profession and that the traditional emphasis on the work’s technical aspects has created numerous myths and misunderstandings about interpreting.

  First is the myth that interpreters are not active and influential participants in the communication event. The second myth is that the constructs of language and culture, the ways we usually learn about and talk about interpreting work, are sufficient for capturing the phenomenology of interpreting work. The last myth is that there is a limited set of best practice behaviours that, if followed strictly, interpreters will always be ethically sound.

  These myths can be problematic in any type of interpreting assignment but they are particularly troublesome in mental health settings. Addressing and dispelling these myths is essential. Many times, correcting these misunderstandings means the difference between effective and ineffective evaluation and treatment outcomes for deaf consumers. In this introductory workshop, Dean and Pollard will address these interpreting myths and present the fundamentals of their demand-control schema. This new schema serves as the scaffold for their broader practice-profession perspective on interpreting in the unique mental healthcare setting.

  In this workshop, we reconstruct the interpreting event by reformulating and adding to the language and culture factors present in the work. We pay careful attention to the impact of our decisions and ourselves on the communication event - and not by denying that this impact exists. Last, we will use a very different language around decisions and ethics that creates a best practice process by which professionals can evaluate the myriad decisions available to them in their work. Participants will leave this workshop with new insights about their work, their decisions, their consumers, their colleagues, and the interpreting profession through a new, structured, and holistic paradigm.

  For details of how to attend this event please contact [email protected]
  
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  Next BSMHD meeting – Edinburgh 11 December 2007

  The next BSMHD meeting will be held in Edinburgh on 11 December 2007 at Deaf Action, 49 Albany Street, Edinburgh EH1 3QY. The meeting will be an opportunity to meet staff from the Health Services and Deaf Organisations in Scotland and to start the planning process for the 2008 Annual Conference. BSMHD Meetings are open to all members and are free to attend. If you would like to attend please contact Jonathan Isaac, [email protected] .

  Dates of future meetings: 13 March 2008 in Birmingham and 10 July 2008 in Cardiff.
  
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  Healthy Deaf Minds

  The next meeting of the Healthy Deaf Minds London Group will be on Wednesday 5 December 2007 at the Small Meeting Room, Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London (opposite Euston Station). In order to receive automatic Emails you only need to subscribe at: [email protected] . All meetings are on a Wednesday at Friends Meeting House, Euston. Starting at 6.30pm and finishing at 9pm. Full communication support, tea & coffee are available. Entrance fee is £5 to cover the cost of room hire.
  
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  National Deaf Services Conference Day on 15 April 2008
  
  South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust, National Deaf Services, Mental Health Service for Deaf People. The conference on 26 November is now fully booked and so on 15 April 2008 the National Deaf Services will host another conference day at Springfield Hospital, Balham, South London.
  
  The conference aim is to provide information about our service and will include:
  
  - The Deaf perspective on mental health services for deaf people.
  - Deaf Children's services: education, inpatient, outpatient and family therapy.
  - Deaf Adult Inpatient and community services
  - DEST (Deaf Enhanced Service Team)
  - Service User Forum
  - Psychological therapy service.
  
  There will be speakers, workshops and opportunities to ask questions. We will provide sign language interpreters, speech to text and a loop system. If you are interested in attending please contact Herbert Klein, Fax 020 8682 6461, email: [email protected]

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  Health of deaf people

  Tenders are invited for a major research project into the health of deaf people in the UK.

  The charity Sign wish to commission a study to investigate the health of deaf people and to compare it with the health to the general population. The research will identify which areas of health are poorest among deaf people and examine the possible reasons for this. The study will also provide an insight into the health care experiences of deaf patients, which may help to explain any health differentials and identify strategies for improvement.

  Funding of up to £150k over two years is available.

  For further details please visit www.signcharity.org.uk. For an application form, please e-mail [email protected] or contact Sign on 01494 687600 (telephone) or 01494 687626 (textphone).

  Closing date, 1pm 7th December 2007.
  
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  ASLI CONFERENCE ‘Looking Back – Going Forward’

  The 2008 ASLI conference will be held at the prestigious Cumberland Hotel in Central London on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6 April 2008. The conference theme is ‘Looking Back – Going Forward’ and, in honour of ASLI’s 21st birthday, will provide a retrospective that looks at where the profession has come from and looks to the future by sharing knowledge & experience and generating new ideas on interpreting.

  Keynote speaker: We are pleased to announce Sharon Neumann Solow as our keynote speaker. An established and well-respected U.S. interpreter, interpreter coordinator, performer, lecturer & consultant, Sharon's paper will address the conference theme: 'Looking Back - Going Forward'

  ASLI PhD Lecture: Another addition to our conference programme sees a return to the ASLI PhD Lecture series and we are pleased to announce that our presenter will be Jules Dickinson. A BSL/English Interpreter & lecturer, Jules is currently in the final year of a PhD research project that examines the impact and implications of sign language interpreters in workplace settings with focus on power relationships, office culture and interpreter/client boundaries.

  Call for Papers: ASLI would like to invite proposals for papers from all stakeholders: Deaf and hearing interpreters, consumer, sign language & interpreter trainers and interpreter researchers. The deadline for submissions is 4th January 2008. For further details of thematic areas and submission checklist please visit the ASLI website at www.asli.org.uk– Conference 08.

  Conference Bookings: Conference bookings are now open. Rates and downloadable booking forms are available from the ASLI website as above. Early Bird rates are available for all bookings made by 1st February 2008.
  
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  Somerset NHS Trust "Social Worker: Mental Health and Sensory Loss"

  The Somerset Partnership NHS and Social Care Trust have appointed a "Social Worker: Mental Health and Sensory Loss" to develop and promote services to eligible mental health service users who have sensory loss, and to raise awareness of sensory loss issues within the Partnership. Tracy Murlis uses two hearing aids herself and comes from a background related to diversity and equality. She will be learning BSL as part of her new role. Tracy can be contacted at the Partnership via email: [email protected] and is keen to provide news updates as the role develops.
  
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  Ageing and Deaf Conference April 08
  
  From the conference organisers: You are aware that we are planning a Conference on Ageing and Deaf in Austria 22-25 April 2008. As the group of people working in this field is small, we find ourselves in a difficult position. The deadline for Abstracts is the end of November and although we still have about three weeks left, we have not experienced a major response to our invitation. The Organising committee has decided now that we will take a decision to go forward or cancel the conference based on the amount and quality of abstracts with a good geographical spread. We therefore have a serious request: if you have an interest in a conference of this kind, please send a mail to the Conference office ( [email protected] ) and inform us if you intend to attend and/or to submit an abstract. if you could do that until the end of November 07, that will give us an idea if there is a real interest or not. We do not want to present a conference of a poor quality or low interest and therefore would rather cancel it. For more information about the Conference, the goals and target group of the conference please visit the website. www.agedeaf.org . We will inform you at the end of November whether the conference will take place in April or not.
  
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  Mental Health Act 2007 - campaign update from Mind

  The Government's controversial Mental Health Bill finally became law in July and is now the Mental Health Act 2007.

  Mind's endurance and persistence over an eight year long campaign, together with that of the 75 other organisations of the Mental Health Alliance and individuals who lobbied their MPs and told their experience to the media and policy makers, made a difference. The Act is a significant improvement on what the Government originally planned.

  Thanks to everyone who participated over the years for all your help and support in this extremely important campaign.

  Although far from perfect, at least the Act now contains:

  principles to which professionals should adhere when using the Act, including respect for diversity and user involvement;
  a clause that ensures that compulsory treatment can only be used if its purpose is to alleviate or prevent a worsening of a mental health problem or its symptoms or manifestations;
  tighter controls on what conditions can be placed on someone who is compulsorily treated in the community;
  a right to an independent mental health advocate for anyone subject to the Act;
  measures to prevent children and young people being accommodated on adult wards;
  a clause to ensure 16 and 17 year olds' refusal of treatment cannot be overridden by their parents;
  a safeguard allowing people held in police cells for assessment to be moved to a more appropriate place of safety as soon as one is made available;
  new safeguards for patients receiving electroconvulsive therapy;
  a strengthening of the provisions in the Act's Code of Practice which means that professionals who do not follow it could face legal challenge.
  Mind will continue to monitor closely the detail of implementation as it is developed and make the most of the opportunities available for further improvement to the way the law is interpreted by professionals.

  Despite the improvements achieved the Act still represents a failure by the Government to produce humane and progressive mental health legislation.

  In particular the opportunity has been missed to tackle fundamental problems - to fight race inequalities, to give people with mental health problems the same rights to make choices as people with physical health problems, and to ensure that people can get help when they ask for it.

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  Note: The articles that appear in this newsletter are for information only – inclusion does not imply endorsement of the contents by BSMHD.

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Note: The articles that appear in this newsletter are for information only – inclusion does not imply endorsement of the contents by BSMHD.

The next edition of the BSMHD Newsletter will be sent out in January 2008. The deadline for sending articles is 1 January 2008. Please send by email to: [email protected]