In Lithuania, all interpreters are provided by a centralised Interpreting Centre in the heart of each of the major towns and cities.
Government funded, these Centres provide free interpreters for all of the Deaf community’s needs: social, education, medical, employment, and personal.
They provide a one-stop-shop where Deaf people can either attend face-to-face or call via Skype to book their interpreter. They are the only place where interpreters can be booked, so knowing where to go and how to book isn’t a barrier for the Lithuanian Deaf community.
In contrast, the English BSL interpreting service is not so clear-cut.
There is no centralised place where interpreters can be found. They must be sought out by following a huge range of differing, and often mind-boggling, processes.
Some GPs are happy to book an interpreter for you in advance, some ‘don’t have the funds’. Some public services providers have a pool of interpreters to call on whenever they are requested, others don’t seem to know where or how to find communication professionals.
The English system is so varied, and so complicated, that even the service providers aren’t sure what to do.
For Deaf people who don’t know the system, or who can’t speak or read English, securing an interpreter can be a frightening, frustrating and confusing process.
It’s not only the immigrant Deaf community who are lost in the system, it’s English young Deaf people without life experience, or Deaf people with less knowledge of how the world works, who are often left without communication support.
In Lithuania, interpreters are provided for free for any private or social business, such as reading and translating documents, speaking to family and so on.
In England, there is little or no free support for Deaf people who cannot read or write English. Anyone wanting to write a letter, read a book or phone family is expected to pay for their interpreters themselves.
Although there is some benefits funding available for Deaf people, this isn’t enough and many Deaf people don’t qualify for the help. Services such as SignVideo make the process of making phone-calls home easy for Deaf people, but they are sadly not funded to provide them for free.
Having said that, SignVideo have made huge in-roads into making the world more accessible for Deaf people through their partnerships with big brands such as the O2, Barclays and others.
In terms of the workplace, the majority of Deaf people in Lithuania are employed in manual jobs such as carpentry, factory work, farming and so on. As such, there is little need for interpreters in the workplace and, although the interpreters at the Interpreting Centres are allowed to interpret for a Deaf person at work, they are rarely called upon for this purpose. Deaf people are often asked to bring friends or family or just try to understand their boss or colleagues the best they can.
In England, Deaf people can access Government funded interpreters through the Access To Work scheme. Fully qualified, registered and independent interpreters can be with the Deaf person every day at their work place providing true equality for the Deaf and hearing staff.
In Lithuania, there is a shortage of qualified interpreters with most having only the equivalent of Level 3. Because of the ease in which Deaf Lithuanians can book free interpreters, there has been little incentive for them to complain about the low numbers or lack of skills in their interpreters. However, as Deaf Lithuanians travel more, and as more Deaf people from around the world visit Lithuania, the Deaf community is becoming more politicised and learning more about their communication rights.
A great example of this is the cinema in Lithuania. Because most films shown are in spoken English, they have Lithuanian subtitles anyway. Unlike in England, there has been no need for Deaf Lithuanians to campaign for cinema access; they have it by default. However, now that cinema technology is advancing, and dubbing is becoming the norm in Lithuanian cinemas, Deaf people are suddenly finding that the subtitles aren’t there anymore.
They are having to find an assertive, collective campaigning spirit that they’ve never had before. The last thing they want is to only be able to go to the cinema on certain days of the month – along with the entire Deaf community – to watch a film they don’t really want to see or that came out weeks ago, like is the norm in England.
This also plays havoc with the English Deaf community’s love life: it’s practically impossible to go on a first date to the cinema – if it’s the only subtitled film on that month, you’ll be spotted by every Deaf Tom, Dick and Harry!
The sheer volume of BSL interpreters in England leads to healthy competition as no-one can get lazy or complacent with a whole group of newly qualified interpreters coming up behind them. This is great for ensuring skill sets are kept at a high level, however, this can also lead to some unethical behaviour by unregulated interpreting agencies who use the numbers of interpreters to play them off against each other to cut fees and lower working conditions.
In contrast to the Government run monopoly on interpreting services in Lithuania, England has a huge number of unregulated, independent interpreting agencies. Some are BSL specialists, whilst the majority are spoken language interpreting agencies who have added on BSL as a lucrative sideline.
Some agencies provide an excellent, ethical service to all parties involved, but sadly many do not. With big contracts up for grabs, many agencies try to undercut each other which then leads to retrospective fee cuts for interpreters.
The only way that these contracts can be met is by either the agency taking a smaller cut of the profits or by the interpreter cutting their fees to often sustainable levels below a living wage. Sadly, this often leads either to the Deaf person being left without an interpreter, or being supplied with an unqualified or inexperienced ‘signer’.
I would always advise Deaf people who are having interpreters provided by an agency to ask for the interpreter’s name and check for them on the NRCPD database of registered communication professionals (www.nrcpd.org.uk). If they are not there, ask for someone who is. This is particularly important if you need an interpreter for a police interview or in court. This should be a specialist interpreter who has passed additional training and has security clearance. Always ask friends and interpreters for recommendations of ethical agencies.
There are also lots of ways to get access to interpreters in England, either face to face or via technology such as Skype or via SignVideo. Many websites now provide subtitled or BSL interpreted clips and allow phone calls to their Customer Service departments via videophone, website app or Skype.
There are also in-vision interpreters on a range of television daily, not like in Lithuania where interpreters are only provided for Government television programmes.
Professional Deaf or Disabled theatre companies such as Deafinitely Theatre, FingerSmiths or Graeae are unheard of in Lithuania and, although you can book a Government-provided interpreter to accompany you to the theatre, there is no general provision of interpreters at events or shows.
There are pros and cons to both the English and Lithuanian systems; from the reliable, straightforward booking system of Lithuania that provides under-skilled staff to the complicated and confusing but much more varied English system, it seems neither country has quite cracked the interpreter situation.
For those living in England I have this advice:
- If you want to work, make sure you apply for Access to Work.
- If your potential employer is concerned about costs, reassure them that they can be met – atleast in part – by AtW.
- If you want to go to an event, ask them to provide an interpreter.
- You have a right to an interpreter in a medical appointment, don’t let them say no.
- Contact a company like SignVideo to ask them about the contracts they offer to enable you to make phone calls.
- If you book an interpreter through an agency, ask for their name and make sure they are registered with NRCPD.
As a Lithuanian living and working in England, I have been provided with an excellent interpreting service. However, I often wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn’t started work in an interpreting agency, if I hadn’t been privy to all the insider information about how the system works, if I hadn’t had a pool of qualified, registered interpreters to guide me through the quagmire of the English system. Who would have explained all the idiosyncrasies of the various processes and hoops I’ve had to jump through?
The one thing lacking here, in my opinion, is a one stop shop for Deaf sign language users. A clear, simple website where all the different rules and systems and processes are explained in layman terms for us to understand.
How else will Deaf people ever gain equality? We can’t ever have full access to English life if we spend half our time trying to work out which form to fill in or being passed from pillar to post when asking for a simple thing like an interpreter.
How can we open doors, if we don’t know which doors to knock on?
Lina Kankeviciute, aka Lina Cankas is a Deaf Lithuanian living in London. She is currently studying Parapsychology. She is the founder of Lithuanian Deaf spiritual and Lithuanian sign language/politics groups in Lithuania, enjoys nature, travel, books, performing arts, photography, and orienteering sport. She is a strong supporter of Deaf and human rights.
Tim
September 26, 2016
After reading this I think I want to move to Lithuania.
vardas
September 27, 2016
tai ir eik! 🙂
Lina Cankas
September 29, 2016
Hi Tim, I’d recommended you checked out both sides of Lithuania first though. There are lots of negatives about being Deaf there as well as the positives I’ve mentioned. Do some investigations and then see how you feel! You’d be very welcome if you wanted to move there though. 🙂
Hartmut
September 27, 2016
Moving to a state controlled and state funded interpreting service is a dream, but it may not be the best way to provide complete access of deaf people into the hearing society. There are several several models:of how to provide communication access for deaf people in the hearing society. I can give the descriptions of three rudimentary models:
1) complete provision by the government at all levels – be it national, provincial, county, or municipal – similarly to what you describe for Lithuania. A variation could be a charity organization instead of state to assume the same communication access obligation that a government ought to do.
2) complete provision by all private business/industry service providers, including universities, corporations, service agencies, courts, doctors, lawyers, banks, etc.
3) deaf persons to pay for all costs of communication access and assistance services that will be reimbursed either by a tax reduction or reimbursement from the tax authority as a form of negative tax.
Naturally there are hybrid combinations of 1), 2), and 3) that could be realized to provide communication access via sign language to deaf people.in the hearing world. Ideally would be the combination of 1) and 2). No deaf person and his family are obliged to pay for any communication access service.
It becomes a political problem which of the access models or which hybrid models would be practical in a country.
When a government is involved in funding for the communication access, you enter of course into the bureaucratic jungle to obtain the needed funding.
Lina Cankas
September 29, 2016
Hi Harmut,
Thanks for such a thought provoking response. I agree, a combination of 1 and 2 would be ideal. At the moment, there are no charity organisations in Lithuania with responsibility for interpreting; everything is state controlled. There is a Deaf charity called the Lithuania Deaf Association who is responsible for things like ensuring the human rights of deaf people across Lithuania are met but they have no interpreting remit. They have a small pool of money to pay for the interpreting needs of their own staff, most of whom are volunteers.
For example, the president of the Association is a volunteer so should he need an interpreter in his role, the Association would pay.
You’re right to say that there is a lot of bureaucracy involved in state led interpreting services. The Interpreting Centre in the capital, Vilnius, is currently undergoing some controversy. After complaints from the Deaf community, a new Director was recently appointed and the Government stated that her deputy should be a Deaf person, with a lived experience of using interpreters and an understand of all the politics that this can involve. Unfortunately, the Interpreting Centre failed to advertise the role publicly and it was given to a hearing woman, well known for her project management role in the Deaf Association but with no experience working in the interpreting field. Deaf people have been protesting at the unfair nature of her appointment as this was a real opportunity for a Deaf person to climb the career ladder. Unfortunately, this is yet another example of hearing control over Deaf services in Lithuania.
It’s also worth noting that interpreters are able to refuse jobs as they please. For example, interpreters will not provide transcripts for spoken things such as radio shows, videos, news items or similar (and visa versa, i.e signed videos into transcript). The only time that they will translate into written Lithuanian is in public service environments such as education, medical settings and court.
There is no weekend access to state funded interpreters and the weekday hours are limited to 8-5, with the occasional possible extension to 7.30pm. If you want an interpreter in the evening, during the night or at weekends, you have to pay yourself.
There is so much more I could say about the interpreting situation in Lithuania but that would end up as a whole other article so I’ll stop for now. Thank you again for your thoughtful response, I have passed it on to the Deaf Youth Association to see if they would like to comment.
Hartmut
September 27, 2016
Rats, no editing possibility here. There are a few grammatical errors and poor word choices in my previous posting.
Cathy
September 27, 2016
Lithuania has a free system of interpreters?! Perhaps under skilled, but free?! What the hell! Send them over here!!! Our interpreters are inaccessible due to the costs. The higher the level they are, the more they charge, this makes them unaffordable and there is no way you can book one for weddings n parties where hearing people congregate. Lithuania is much better, in my book.
Lina Cankas
September 29, 2016
Hi Cathy,
Unfortunately, there are no state funded interpreters in the evenings or at weekends so we also have to pay for our own interpreters at social events, weddings and parties.
nathan
September 27, 2016
The problem with State Controlled and State Funded interpreting services is the lack of competition.
In this country, the competition created by various agencies means we have better quality interpreters.
However I agree, the lack of access here is frustrating. We should have increased PIP allowances to fund interpreters etc.
Lina Cankas
September 29, 2016
Hi Nathan,
What you say about there being no competition is right. Every country has their own interpreting problems and whilst Lithuania has lots of positives, it certainly isn’t a Deaf utopia.
Oh Dear
September 27, 2016
“For those living in England I have this advice: blah blah blah.”
Does this Lithuanian think British deaf people are stupid? Of course we already know what to do.
Lina Cankas
September 29, 2016
Oh Dear,
I’m really pleased that you feel confident, empowered and informed enough to challenge the state of interpreting services in the UK. However, I believe you are in the minority. There are many, many Deaf people in this country who, through no fault of their own, really struggle to understand the bureaucracy involved in getting access. Not all Deaf people are educated or empowered enough to state their rights and demand interpreters. There are thousands of Deaf people in the UK who are going without their basic human rights because they don’t understand the system and don’t have anyone to advocate on their behalf. I really hope that you are using your knowledge to work with those people who need extra support and to challenge the current status quo. I wish you the best of luck with all your campaigning and will be standing next to you when you fight for better access for Deaf people in the UK.
Alice
October 4, 2016
Thanks for sharing your views. I found some of your points interesting but I’m left wondering what the point of it all is! I don’t think it’s particularly helpful, or necessary, to compare interpreting services in two very different countries.
The UK has a population of 64 million people, a strong capitalist ethos, and a thriving economy.
Lithuania, with its population of only 2.9 million people has a far smaller economy and I’m sure some of the communist ideas of the past still remain somewhat.
This is probably a terribly sweeping statement, but Deaf and disabled people in Lithuania are “looked after” and given “help”, rather than enabled to progress and achieve as they are in the UK.
Yes Deaf people in the UK may find it hard to access interpreting services; there is a minefield of information out there and many interpreter services with no sure fire way of telling which ones are the “ethical” ones. The reason for such a vast amount of agencies and services is because the nature of the UK economy breeds competition between agencies, and surely this is a positive. With only one service to use in Lithuania, and no competition, where is the incentive to provide an exemplary service?
I’m happy for you, that you’ve been able to learn how the system works from your privileged position at work, but I’m still left wondering what can be done to help every day Deaf people understand the system. Do you have any tips?
As an aside, I tried to book an interpreter for a very important, non-work appointment via the agency at which you work and didn’t even get an acknowledgement email. What hope is there for Deaf people if you understand the system, and know where to go to find an interpreter, and are still faced with a brick wall!
Lina Cankas
October 5, 2016
Dear Alice
Thanks for your comment.
I think it’s vital that Deaf people are encouraged to share their experiences and take the lead when it comes to discussing and making decisions about their own lives. If Deaf people don’t share their stories, then our lives will be dictated by hearing people. Hearing people make great allies, friends, partners, family and colleagues but it is Deaf lived experiences which should be given priority and actively encouraged.
I’m hoping that this article might provide food for thought for Deaf people, interpreters, agencies, the people who fund and commission interpreters and the wider community.
You are right when you say the Lithuanian situation is not perfect, in fact, Lithuania holds Britain on a pedestal when it comes to interpreting and aspires to have the same quality and range of interpreters that are available here. There are many highly intelligent, educated Deaf people in Lithuania who are campaigning for an improvement in interpreting services but sadly the interpreters are simply not up to scratch. Despite all the free interpreting available, Deaf people are still facing barriers in Lithuania.
I would argue that the same is true for the UK. Despite the superior quality of interpreters here, there are lots of problems facing Britain’s Deaf community which we are all more than aware of. As I stated in my article, there are positives and negatives to both systems. My motivation for comparing the two very different economies was the hope that each country may learn something from each other. Maybe British Deaf people and interpreters would find something worth replicating in the Lithuanian system and vice versa.
It is interesting what you say about Lithuanian Deaf people wanting ‘help’ as I find the same thing to be true in the UK. Only yesterday, I received a Facebook message from a stranger asking me to transcribe some BSL for him. As with all societies, there are those who are proactive and capable and willing, and those who prefer to sit back and ‘helped’. One thing I have found, is the lack of peer support between Deaf people here in the UK. I have witnessed lots of highly capable Deaf people sending their less able peers to Deaf organisations from support, rather than offering them guidance themselves. I think that the best people to ‘help’ Deaf people, are their Deaf peers. Sadly, many interpreting agencies seem to be focussed on their profits rather than fighting for access for Deaf people so they do not go out of their way to support Deaf people other than to take their interpreting bookings. There are lots of Deaf organisations around but many are either not fit for purpose or massively overstretched due to funding cuts.
In terms of ‘tips’ for Deaf people in the UK, I’m sure we all know what needs to happen. What I think we need to do is to stop handing complete responsibility for access and interpreting to external organisations and to start helping and empowering Deaf friends, colleagues and family ourselves. Deaf organisations are essential and lots do a great job, but we have to share the responsibility with them.
In terms of your experience of trying to book an interpreter through an agency, I don’t think this is the appropriate place to comment, other than to state that I have now moved to a new job and I suggest you contact the agency in question if you wish to complain.
Ben
November 3, 2016
Very inspiring. Thanks for this post.