Welcome to the Critical Link Resource Centre

  • Democratizing the public sphere through ‘affordable’ interpreting: The Boston Interpreters Collective’s multilingual justice program

  • Interpreters Aid Refugee Population: An Interview With Kiran Malli

Kiran Malli, Director of the Provincial Language Service for British Columbia, Canada, speaks on aiding British Columbia’s new Syrian refugee population and the training that goes into preparing interpreters.

  • The Health Care Interpreter Services: Strengthening Access to Primary Health Care (SAPHC

The Health Care Interpreter Services: Strengthening Access to Primary Health Care (SAPHC) project was built on the premise that effective communication is essential to health care quality and access. The Healthcare Interpretation Network (HIN) and Critical Link Canada became increasingly aware that the health of people with Limited English and French Proficiency (LEP/LFP) is compromised by their limited communication with health care providers.

In partnership, the two non-profit organizations created the Strengthening Access to Primary Health Care project. Funded in 2003 by the Primary Health Care Transition Fund, Health Canada, the project set out to:

• Investigate and document the current state of primary health care service delivery to patient populations with LEP/LFP; and

• Examine health care providers’ familiarity with services provided by trained interpreters and their opinions about interpreters’ roles in
primary health care.

A series of 6 reports were produced through the project:

This is a working paper which focuses on the role of interpreters at Ellis Island from 1892 to 1954. It looks at the different positions occupied by these interpreters and the interpreting practices that were established as a result of the demands of this setting in relation to immigration laws and the discourse on Americanization.

A cross section of representatives of Public and Private Sector organizations were involved in the development and publication of the First National Statement of Standards to Guide the practice of Community Interpreters in Canada.

The first of its kind in Canada, this Guide is designed to provide a framework on which to build the standards and competencies of spoken language interpreters who work in the social service, legal and health care sectors across the Country.

This Standard Guide is a first step towards the eventual recognition of the importance of Standards and the professional accreditation of Community Interpreters in Canada

  • Strengthening Access to Primary Health Care (SAPHC)

The SAPHC Program was a federally funded project that brought together key stakeholders in the Community Interpreting field from across Canada. The project worked in the three primary centers of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Pilot projects, an extensive literature review and forums resulted in the production of 5 documents available below:

“Access to good quality health care is one of the fundamental principles of our Canadian health care system. Yet, there is a small but growing body of research that highlight that Canadians who are not proficient in Canada’s two official languages experience major health inequities as a result of language barriers. Although addressing health inequities must be considered an ethical and legal obligation, the perceived cost
of providing interpretation services represents a major healthsystems-level challenge…”

This is a project of the Asian Pacific Association of Community Health Organizations in the U.S. The site provides replicable templates in assessment, development of written policies and procedures, and monitoring of health care interpretation services.

This annotated bibliography (which includes both translation and interpretation research) is compiled at the University of Ottawa and is updated annually. The Web page lists only the titles contained in the bibliography; the full annotated version is available from St. Jerome Publishing.

Articles by Holly Mikkelson, who is Director of Programs at Language Services Associates and Adjunct Professor of Translation and Interpretation at the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Commissioned by Health Canada and prepared by Sarah Bowen in 2001. Provides an overview of current research describing the impact of language barriers on access to health care and quality of care, and considers the role that language access programs can play in addressing these barriers.

Vancouver Community College is pleased to provide you with this glossary of 6000 Canadian legal and court-related terms in English Plain Language, and their equivalents in seven other languages (Chinese, Farsi, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean).

Links to on-line newsletters of interest to translators and interpreters, glossaries, translation engines, conferences, organizations and many other resources.

Fair Trials has released a series of practitioner Toolkits designed to act as a guide for defense practitioners around the use of the new directives, and to encourage courts to rely upon them.