Note from Uncle Dale: It’s Time For All Of Us To Join The Fight!

#UtahDeafRights

 

Good enough is NOT GOOD ENOUGH until the Deaf patient says it is!

 

 

 

Denver Here Comes Uncle Dale!

This weekend I will be presenting at Colorado RID

I will give two workshops on Saturday:

Leaving Literal Translation Behind; and,

Ask Me Anything: Interpreting in Civil/Criminal Legal Settings

I will present Ask Me Anything: Interpreting in Civil/Criminal Legal Settings again on Sunday

(I may even try to look in on the student conference on Thursday 😋)

I am so very excited that CRID is partnering with DOVE for this conference. https://www.deafdove.org

I work with a sister organization, Sego Lily Center for Abused Deaf, here in Utah as often as I can. I cannot say enough good things about these organizations. They deserve our time and treasure and I am thrilled to do anything I can to support DOVE’s great work.

http://www.coloradorid.org/crid-conference-2019.html

Thank you for the invite CRID! Can’t wait to see you all there!

Rule 746

Interpreters sometimes get stuck in moments of error.

They set up a little research camp in that moment, and stay to more fully examine the mistake.

Sooner or later it requires permanent mental structures to house all the energy needed to roll the mistake over and over in your mind.

All the while the text has moved on and suddenly the interpreter realizes they are well and truly lost.

So they run after the text.

But don’t worry. They come back to the mistake on vacation, at about two-thirty the next morning, wide awake, in their bed.

But you don’t need to. Just remember this simple Rule:

If you’ve learned from a mistake you don’t need to dwell on it.

Rule 744

Don’t ask other interpreters questions you know they CAN’T answer:

“Are you here interpreting?”

“How did your appointment go?”

“Are you interpreting for (insert event, speaker or performer here)?”

Are there Deaf people here?

Have you ever interpreted for (name)?

Uncle Dale at the Utah Association of the Deaf Conference.

Saturday, September 7, 2019, I was honored to be present at UAD’s annual conference in Ogden, Utah.

My workshop was an overview of Federal laws. I present it like each applicable law (the ADA, 501, 504, the ACA and IDEA) or Title thereof (ADA Titles I, II and III) are separate countries and we are all taking a tour and learning the culture and language of each.

This workshop is designed to be presented in a gym or large conference room and it takes six hours (two sessions of three hours each). I map the “laws/countries” out on the floor and the participants physically travel from one “law/country” to the next while we discuss the similarities and differences in each law/country’s history, language, culture, and customs.

It’s a big undertaking.

As you can imagine I’ve only been asked to do the full presentation a few times but each time has been amazing (I am thinking of organizing one for a Saturday in early November at the Utah Community Center for the Deaf and filming some of it so people or groups who are interested can see how it works). The first time I did it I had souvenirs from the different “laws/countries” the participants visited.

Like I said, it’s labor intensive for me to do the full tour and to do it right, but it’s worth it.

Usually I am asked to give a less involved version of it in a 2-3 hour time slot. It’s still a fantastic workshop but I sometimes feel like the participants are taking a tour by bullet-train!

In the 2-3 hour version the attendees stay in one place and I move (if you look at the top of the projector screen you can see one of our “stops” marked out.

This time I had just a little over an hour-so I really had to strip it down. Luckily, Jared Allebest’s presentation covered many of the details I had to edit out for time.

I was thrilled UAD asked me to present because the venue was a little bit of a homecoming for me. The conference room where I gave my presentation was right down the hall from my former office at The Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind.

Back in the 1990’s I was the lead mentor for all of the interpreters working within the USDB system.

By the way, Jared Allebest, the guy I mentioned before, is an attorney who is Deaf here in Utah.

Yes. Utah has two attorneys who are fluent in ASL! (I’m just kidding. Utah actually has FOUR attorneys who are fluent in ASL. Two of us who are solo practitioners, one who works the for state in the juvenile court system and one who works with a firm in southern Utah-it’s kind of an embarrassment of wealth I will admit that).

My next two scheduled presentations will be on October 12, 2019 through Zaboosh on-line trainings. You can get more info here:

https://zaboosh.com/collections/frontpage/products/what-works-october-2019-conference

And

The Colorado RID Conference, October 18-20, 2019, details here:

http://www.coloradorid.org/crid-conference-2019.html

I’d love to meet you so if you see me don’t hesitate to come up to say hi!