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Guidelines for Healthcare Settings
The Migrant and Refugee Women’s Health Partnership published the Competency Standards Framework for Clinicians in January 2019, entitled Culturally Responsive Clinical Practice: Working with People from Migrant and Refugee Backgrounds. This Framework, below, sets out the standards for all clinical practitioners in Australia when working with interpreters. The Framework is accompanied by a specific Guide for Clinicians Working with Interpreters in Health Care Settings, also below. AUSIT encourages all clinicians around Australia to carefully study this Guide before working with interpreters.
AUSIT’s own Guidelines for Health Professionals pre-date the Competency Standards Framework, but enshrine the same principles:
The NSW Health Care Interpreter Service (HCIS) and QLD government also provide resources, including a training DVD on achieving best outcomes when working with interpreters:
For psychologists working with interpreters, AUSIT recommends:
Helen Tebbe’s Medical Interpreting: Improving communication with your patients also provides guidance for physicians and other medical practitioners who need to work with medical interpreters. Special attention is given to the Australian context. The text is available online from ERIC Documents ED426614 and the video can be ordered from Helen.Tebble@monash.edu.
UNSW has made available a series of videos providing guidance on dealing with difficult situations that can arise in interpreter-mediated interactions in oncology settings:
