Language support:: challenges and benefits for users and providers of health and social care services
The last decade has seen increasing numbers of people moving across borders in pursuit of work, safety and refuge. An inevitable consequence of this is that there are many people accessing services who do not speak the official language of the country in which they find themselves. In London, UK, alone it is estimated that over 300 languages are spoken by schoolchildren (Burck, 2004:315). This multilingual landscape is challenging to both the providers and the users of these services.
There have been attempts to address this challenge over the past two decades with admirable results including:
- improvements in training;
- recognition of the status of community interpreters;
- improvements in guidelines for service providers working with interpreters.
The intention of this paper is not to erode good work and progress made so far, but to recognise that the range of situations in which language support is needed is very broad and varied. The pattern of language support needs have changed over recent years with Vertovec (2007) describing a new era of super-diversity due to dispersed patterns of settlement and migration from an increased number of countries. Combined with an era of austerity, this super-diversity is a challenge, but also an invitation to start a creative conversation about different ways of delivering appropriate language support. The paper takes account of a range of considerations including service users’ preferences, quality, safety, financial constraints and service providers’ responsibility in their practice to engage actively with the challenge of language support.
Published : 26th February 2013
Author : Beverley Costa [ More From This Author ]
Publisher : Race Equality Foundation [ More From This Publisher ]
Rights : Race Equality Foundation
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