A Brief History of the Mental Health Interpreter Training Project
Neil Glickman said of Alabama’s mental health interpreters that, “[T]he sophistication of these interpreters in mental health not only meets the level of best practice, it establishes it.”This is high praise from one of the world’s leading experts in mental health and deafness.It is no accident that Alabama is home to a program that garners such praise. It is the result of years of planning and work that has gone into building a stellar mental health interpreting program. Alabama’s Mental Health Interpreter Training project has been more than 14 years in the making.It started as a “what if” rhetorical question that Steve Hamerdinger, then director of the now defunct Bureau of Deaf Services at the Missouri Department of Mental Health, asked at a staff meeting in 1995.To Wayne Elrod and Jay Wolfe it wasn’t rhetorical; it was a practical and realistic question.Wayne, who was a staff interpreter Deaf Services and Jay, who was with the Missouri Commission for the Deaf, took the idea and developed a one day training that became the forerunner of the modern day MHIT. That early effort established some characteristics that have become hallmarks of MHIT.There was considerable focus, even back then, on knowledge vs. signing skill, per se.The underlying principle then, as now, was that people working in mental health settings had to be very competent general interpreters before they approach a highly specialized area like mental health.MHIT would never be about “how do you sign…”It would be about helping interpreters broaden their knowledge of mental illness and treatment so that they would be able to make more effective interpretations.
After that first event, workshops were held more or less annually; sometimes a one day affair but occasionally longer. By 2000, it was clear that the training was losing focus.The Mental Health Interpreting Research Project leadership team, now consisting of Kelley Clark, Ben Karlin and Steve Hamerdinger, began talking about developing some kind of standard on which to ground the training.“We were doing it ‘bass-akwards’ in that we had the training before we had the standards,” said Hamerdinger.Around this time a number of initiatives related to medical interpreting had sprung up around the country as a consequence of Executive Order 13166.While not focused on sign language interpreting per se, there were common elements which were very applicable to mental health interpreting with deaf people.“Efforts in Washington State at codifying ‘qualified’ interpreting in medical settings got us to thinking about what we could do in Missouri,” Hamerdinger explained.
The MHIRP team decided to draft standards for mental health interpreting with deaf people.Locking themselves in a room over two days, they hammered out a draft for what they called “Minimum Competencies for Interpreters in Mental Health Settings.”As common-sensical as those early standards seem now, they were considered radical at the time.The effort received with decidedly mixed reactions.On one hand, it was considered groundbreaking by consumer advocacy groups.On the other, it was viewed with disdain and derision by some provider groups.Mental health providers feared that the standards would raise the cost of interpreters.Interpreters, especially at that moment in time in Missouri, were skeptical of any attempt to “regulate their business.”Opposition from various quarters led to shelving the project in the fall of 2002.
When Hamerdinger moved to Alabama at the beginning of 2003 to begin the Office of Deaf Services there, he brought with him the idea of defining what a Qualified Mental Health Interpreter was.He was soon joined by Charlene Crump and they proved to be “simpatico.”Crump, who at the time was chair of the Alabama Licensure Board for Interpreters and Transliterators, was intrigued by the idea of codifying the mental health interpreting standards.They approached the Director of Policy and Planning at the Alabama Department of Mental Health, Ann Evans, who had a background in deafness, and were enthusiastically encouraged to draft proposed rules.
Determined not to run head first into the same obstacles that sunk the effort in Missouri, Hamerdinger and Crump began a series of meetings with various stakeholder groups in hopes of enlisting support for the standards.They were encouraged when both the Alabama Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf and the Alabama Licensure Board for Interpreters and Transliterators got behind the concept. The Alabama Association of the Deaf and the Department of Mental Health were also firmly behind the effort. Using “Minimum Competencies for Interpreters in Mental Health Settings” as a starting point, Hamerdinger and Crump drafted a working document for feedback from stakeholders.They encountered very little opposition, much to Hamerdinger’s surprise.“I had grown accustomed to the interpreter community resisting any effort define quality in interpreting.I didn’t expect interpreters here to be so receptive.”
Developed through the spring and summer of 2003, the new standards, section 580-3-24 of the Administrative Code of Alabama were entered into the Administrative Code of Alabama in December, 2003. This became the basis for the curriculum of the Interpreter Institute.
The first Interpreter Institute was held over two weekends in September, 2003.The Institute met in Montgomery September 5th – 7th and in Tuscaloosa September 12th – 14th.It was attended by 18 interpreters from around Alabama.The split format allowed for having the training physically inside various facilities where deaf consumers lived.This exposed the interpreters to real-life situations and helped sensitize them how severely freedom is often restricted at in-patient facilities. Robert Pollard, Roger Williams and Steve Hamerdinger were the first to join what would be the core faculty and have been with MHIT since the beginning. In 2004 the Interpreter Institute again utilized the two 3-day session approach, but moved Thursday-Friday-Saturday set. Running August 12th – 14th and 19th – 21st, the training was still split between Montgomery and Tuscaloosa.The class grew to 33 participants and the first group of interpreters from 2003 began to complete the requirements for their Qualified Mental Health Interpreter certification.Robyn Dean was added to the core faculty that year.Additionally, interpreters from surrounding states began to notice the working being done here and wanted to join the Institute.Many of them were already licensed to practice in Alabama.However the Project Leadership received a lot of feedback about the split schedule.
Based on this feedback, the 2005 Interpreter Institute went to a five-day straight through schedule.Running August 8th – 12th, this change made it necessary to keep the Institute in one place.The change also required tightening the curriculum and taking out non-essential classes.The popular “Hearing Voices” activity, conducted by Kathy Seifried was added that year as 29 participants attended the Institute. That year also marked the first time a special break out session was used for deaf interpreters.
The 2006 Interpreter Institute ran September 12th – 17th with 50 participants.There was an unusually large contingent of deaf interpreters that year and an experiment with trying to give deaf participants exposure to some typed of simulated hallucinatory experience was tried. While interesting, it proved not as effective as the Hearing Voices activity.Brian McKenny joined the core faculty that year.Roger Williams was seriously ill that year and Steve Hardy-Braz was brought in to help out.
Running June 4th – June 8th, the 2007 Interpreter Institute shattered previous attendance records, both for number of first time attendees and total number of participants. Wisconsin Department of Mental Health sent a delegation, several members of which completed the entire cycle and become QMHIs.Wisconsin was the first state to unofficially adopt Alabama’s standards.That year, Alabama also ran an experimental Advanced Institute, which drew41 participants, all of whom had previously attended the basic Institute.
In 2008 the Interpreter Institute was held at Troy University at Montgomery, running August 25th – 29th.Another capacity crowd, average experience level was higher than previous groups.This class had a number of clinicians in it as well.
Since the first Interpreter Institute, 260 people have been trained.Many of the have come to more than one Institute. We have had 16 different faculty members over the years with Dean, Pollard, Crump, Hamerdinger and Williams the longest serving core faculty members.