Interpreters Workshop on DV (Domestic Violence) Interpreting - Feb 2108

Di Farmer, Minister for Child Safety, Youth and Women 

and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence paid us an impromptu visit

FACTS given by IWSS and the Minister

• One in 6 women and one in 10 men over the age of 15 have experienced violence at the hand of an intimate partner, and has been the victim of DV. Women are 8 times more likely to experience sexual violence from their partner rather than someone else. 

• DV Connect receives 110 000 calls a year, 9% of those from women who do not speak English. 

• At IWSS (Immigrant women support services) 51% of women who access IWSS need interpreters.

• Nearly 2 women each week are killed in a domestic homicide (Minister)

‘Communication is, perhaps, an immigrant woman’s most immediate barrier to leaving an abusive relationship’ (Minister)

IWSS – Immigrant Women Support Services spoke about 

NESB women are the most vulnerable in our community: access to income, racism when trying to access work in the community, vulnerable to exploitation, visa status, cultural believes, knowing that what is happening to them is not ok, isolation, lang barrier, past trauma and torture.

VT (vicarious trauma) for Interpreters 

Vicarious trauma refers to an individual’s own psycho-emotional reactions due to her exposure to other’s traumatic experiences. 

Signs: insomnia, headaches, rash on the skin, stomach ulcers, anxiety, depression, feeling of guilt, feeling less safe in the world (lack of safety, may all men be like that), agitation/anger, tics, hot sweats, heartburns, difficulty concentrating, changed sense of humour (cynicism), I don’t want to do this type of work again (avoiding), wants to be left alone, declines involvement.

Another problem is Compassion fatigue.

Resources: Calm App, ATA Chronicle magazine, Living Well, debriefing with IWSS personal (good practice is 10mn), breathing mindfully exercise

IWSS Director (25 years exp), Facilitator

How does it happen?

Cycle: I love you, I want you to be with me all the time. Don’t go and see your friends, jealous of what she/he does without him including reading, uses the children to relay messages, then threatens if you do this..., then violence (including violence to self like suicide). Sufferers live in fear and have the inability to make rational decision of what is best for them.

Their speech is not flowing clearly. Use chuchotage technique when appropriate and appropriate calming tone of voice. 

Equal relationship means that people are able to express themselves without fear of retaliation.

(see equality wheel below)

Source: IWSS

Police has a duty to protect people if they judge they cannot protect themselves adequately.

DV Victims, Acting/Senior Sergeant from QLD Police Service. There has been cases in the past when the perpetrator has been used as an interpreter. They don’t like to ask the children because after the police leaves, what may happen to the child. 

Say they have difficulties finding interpreters in the middle of the night and another difficulty is the  level of maturity of young officers (not much life experience, they don’t know how to deal with NESB people at all, they don’t know how to engage). 

'Building a rapport is difficult, I am not just a blue shirt, some NESB people are afraid of the police'. Having the same interpreter is important. 12 000 police officers, so we need agencies. Police interpreters are not suitable for suspects.

An interpreter talked about a case when the victim's parents in law were used as interpreters and all the consequences which could have been avoided.

Child support worker from Save the Children (who could not be here today) left a note. Helps with Children’s problematic behaviours that they may have picked from the perpetrator. Play based interviews. In refuge settings, we have seen many children being used as interpreters. Tone is important, kids coming out of trauma are hypersensitive to tone.

A Principal Sollicitor working for REILS (Refugee and Immigration Legal Service) – daily involvement with migrants, around visa status, demonstrating domestic violence (DV) might be a way of getting a visa. Having continuity of interpreters is difficult with TIS. Compatibility of interpreters, variation of language is a pb with agencies, Arabic is Arabic, they don't differentiate, gender sensitivity is an other. He encourages clients to speak to the interpreters to clarify legal jargon. Advantages of Interpreters are providing cultural cues for us, taking the burden off the client to have to explain everything themselves. We are busy and time poor, so sometimes, we do not always treat the interpreter well, 'we don’t always see her/him as a person' (please someone pinch me :(, 'we need to improve' (yes). The potential of misunderstanding and consequences are too great so we never hesitate when interpreters are needed.

Professionals Australia (Union)– we did not have an industry award, this was discussed.

Ethical principles discussed: prof conduct, confidentiality, competence, impartiality, accuracy

Bringing ethics to practice: skills are applied in a dynamic, interactive and social context

They consider good practice that the interpreters relays cultural information to a client asking more explanations about an unknown system but it is the job of IWSS to explain. Some women are worried about confidentiality with having interpreters.

Good interpreter: Warm empathetic caring flowing tone. Mirroring the client tone. Client ask again an interpreter because she felt that this interpreters was listening to her. IWSS agreed that if the client request the same person, they will try to have this person again, but not always possible with agencies.

Not now, Not ever report against domestic violence – access to justice and right to be heard. Family members are not suitable.

Specialist Domestic Violence Court tried a few years ago on the Gold Coast which is the hotspot of DV. Big success.

Acknowledgement - 'For all the women who would not be able to escape their lives without your support, I thank you. If you did not do what you do these women would not even be in these ‘being helped’ statistics' (Di Farmer, Minister for Child Safety, Youth and Women and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence)

Translator's pride: 'I am someone who assists people to have a voice' (P. Avila, Spanish translator)

More information

Domestic violence means behaviour by a person towards another person with whom the person is in a relevant relationship. Can be physical (threatening to suicide, damaging property… coercing a person out of acts of violence), psychological (calling names, ), emotional (stalking, continuing contacting on phone, preventing a person to be involved with family and friends, not letting a person express their identity like preparing the food they like in their culture etc..), threatening or coercive behaviour (coercing to signing a contract, not allowing her to work), on-going pattern of fear over a period of time.

Source: IWSS

GoodBye 2017

I chose my new mobile phone screen saver to put me in the right foot so that I shall concentrate on my fitness this year. I was racing a different kind of marathon over the last two years and a half for my daughter, but now is the time.

We have achieved a lot this year, even if it does not seem like it.

Starting January, after seeing one of the world top neurosurgeon expert again in Sydney, after a few hospital stays, and an unsuccessful neurostimulators trial of 5 days in March this year in Brisbane, we decided to enquire further overseas about the cause before engaging (if at all) on anything more invasive in terms of controversial last resort surgery or pain management (neurostimulation implant), which seemed the only options left. 

With a lot of preparation and patience, we managed to secure appointments in the US (via Skype), the UK and France, where we would have to travel 'flat' in expensive flight category (business). 

Fortunately, despite losing half of my salary in January (half-redundancy), I got a movie script job (Aquaman 2018) last minute in August (Warners Bros shooting scenes on the Gold Coast, job appointment via University of Queensland), which significantly improved my earnings this year.

It was also a challenge getting insured for the trip and booking early enough reasonably priced business tickets as there is not such a thing as an easily confirmed appointment with very much in demand world experts, who are constantly readjusting priorities. You'd expect to then meet over stressed beings, but no, you meet some of the nicest people who know more than most about the value of a human life, how randomly health issues can sometime strike, and after you leave their office, you will remember having met a human being, not a corporate parrot.

We have gained invaluable knowledge as what 'not to do' in terms of surgery, and came back with a list of suggestions that we are testing one after another to, at least, in order to hopefully improve our daughter's quality of life, if not find the cure. I think we are exploring the edges of what medicine can do for her at this point in time. 

Once in Europe, so happy to even have made it there, we saw all new possibilities. We could do more than we thought we could, by the mere fact that we made it there. It had a huge positive impact psychologically on her and me.

Singapore Airline Lounge in Brisbane as we were about to start our journey

We realised that we could just walk down habitation buildings in Paris and London without the need to take a car (the car causes painful jittering movements for my daughter). So happy to have found this new freedom (bearing in mind that no excursion can last more than an hour and that they are dearly paid for the following day), we explored as much as we could.

We went on a Bateau Mouche (City Cat) in Pont Neuf (Ile de la Cité) near my friend's place where we stayed for two weeks.

We travelled by TGV to Poitiers in France and with Virgins trains to Liverpool in the UK, in first class, to minimise travel movements and for max comfort, to see doctors.

We sampled European flavours and feels

Autumn leaves, I no longer take seasons for granted since living in Australia

Medieval hotels fully renovated

Breakfast table at the Mercure Poitiers (former convent)

and forever Red Brick English building in Liverpool, see the early morning mist

would I ever have believed that seeing familiar morning mist would move me one day

We enjoyed the convenience of the Heathrow Express train to London City centre

We were bombarded with so-called terrorist threats as we exited a hospital in London (see TV screen at Hospital reception below), and our taxi driver was then interviewed about what he thought about the traffic mayhem that would follow.
It is no so much news in reality if you look at it that way: I remember being in Paris in the 80s, being summoned via high speakers to move away from the glass windows while I was studying for Year 12 final exam at Beaubourg library in Paris for similar reasons, except it was not the same causes .... sad extreme practices.

We went to the British Museum to see the Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities sections

Rosetta Stone Stress Ball

I bought myself a silver Egyptian key of life at the souvenir shop

   

Travelling Virgin Train, with what seemed air hostesses on board serving you meals and tea refreshments, while looking at the sheep grazing and distinctive stones edges between the fields

Around Harley Street, in London, a famous specialist doctors hangout

Cab war: Uber versus London cabs

 Our hotel in London

We had a cup of tea with the UK grand-parents in Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Wedgwood Porcelain set - yeah, tastes better...


Not sure if you see a link, but such rigid British traditions surely call for reactions for some

English eccentricities

Mise en bouches for the neighbour's Gay Wedding back at my father's place in Paris

Trying coats that we will never wear (too warm in Australia)

Discovering that my dad can make a Sauté de veau purée, accompanied with St Emilion 

Cheap wine (cheaper than coke, maybe that is why people don't get fat :) at the supermarket

Watching the soccer games with my friend's sons and another day with pépé, supporter scarf around the neck

Pause midi chez Carette with a friend, Place des Vosges, as a real Parisian, a unique day when the City of Paris was forbidden to motor vehicles, and even the impact of noise pollution on people quality of life was being measured that day

Simple but good: warmed apple tart with vanilla pods ice-cream

Oh, and I also missed a good couscous

Café (no milk, of course), Baba au Rhum, to finish a meal (note the small portions)

Trip to Ile de Ré 

(close to Poitiers) where we went in Thalasso to relax for 5 days

Oyster found on the beach

The food at the spa was very local and healthy

Salt fields at sunrise near the hotel

100 km of cycle tracks on Ile de Ré

La vie en espadrilles

Our bed room at the northern tip of Ile de Ré

Back at my father's home in Paris, where we had to extend our stay for further tests, here oysters and paella from the local market for lunch

Défilé (fashion parade) in Galeries Lafayette

Have you ever set a table with winter roses?

Special meal for my daughter's 21st birthday in Paris

Back home, no anxiety there for this flight, we knew we could make it back

What else, this year?

Oh yes, my close friends already know, I received the TWB Translation Award https://translatorswithoutborders.org/translators-without-borders-announces-winners-2017-access-knowledge-awards/

and this led in February to a job offer from ENN as a Humanitarian Nutrition Translator, 25 hours a month, I review Google translate translations on crucial forum discussions between NGO workers on the field and Nutrition academics and experts in Oxford for guidance. I am learning a lot about what is happening on the field for new mothers breastfeeding their children on war torn countries or in European camps, what challenges aid workers face on the field, and this has the advantage of supplementing my incomes from Red Hat, while doing a meaningful and satisfying job.

My son has now passed his recreational pilot written test and is preparing for the solo flight

My son checking out the plane before take off



Last leg of the medical trip: further tests recommended in Brisbane in November

After the hospital one week ordeal, we took a break in Noosa in December for 5 days, first family holiday since 2015, where we met by surprise an old friend of mine who helped me out a lot when my second child came. She was with her family, on holiday from Indonesia. Her husband, who was studying at UQ at the time, is now a Professor in Jakarta and her elder son is following the same path, so happy for her. She gave me a magnificent batik scarf that I will cherish for ever. So incredible how key people in your life seem to come back when you don't expect and lift your life again and again... or well, I like to think so.

We enjoyed a Noosa beer with Calamari snack at the Surf Club, best view over the beach

Found in Noosa Hasting Street


Cooking Mahi Mahi from the market

and after Noosa, we spent Christmas at home in a small party, with my husband brother coming all from Britain to see us after his sojourn in New Zealand, and one of my best friends in Brisbane and her daughter who have been pillars of good humour over the years

Now is the time for me to wish my precious friends all the best for 2018

and thanking you for the life boosting energy that genuine friendship rarely fails to convey

Goodbye 2017, Goodbye to my two uncles who did not make it to 2018.