Germany, BGSD

Country Report of  BGSD e.V.
Bundesverband der GebärdensprachdolmetscherInnen Deutschlands e.V.
(National Association of German Sign Language Interpreters)

Annual Country Report 2008/2009

Facts about Germany:
Germany comprises an area of 357.000 km2 with a population of about 80 million people. Given a percentage of 0,01 % of congenitally deaf people, it is assumed that about 80.000 deaf people live in Germany. By a wider definition, the number of hearing impaired people probably amounts to about 180.000 (not including those who suffer from hearing impairment due to old age). Most of the Deaf tend to live in bigger cities like Hamburg, Bremen, Hannover, Berlin, Cologne, Essen, Leipzig, Dresden, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich. The largest deaf population is said to be in the capital, Berlin.

There are approximately 460 sign language interpreters working in Germany, some full-time, some part-time, we don’t have exact data about the percentage yet. As legal changes have been implemented, deaf people’s demands for interpreters have increased. More and more interpreters complete a formal interpreter training course, so the number of full-time interpreters (most of them free-lance) is likely to grow every year.

The Federal Association of Sign Language Interpreters (BGSD) represents about 400 interpreters, about 75% of all sign language interpreters in Germany. Interpreters in 13 of 16 Federal States are organized in their own regional associations. We still have individual members who are not necessarily regionally organized.
In Germany there are now three full-time training programmes for sign language interpreters at degree level, (University of Hamburg, University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg, University of Applied Sciences Zwickau) and one Deaf Studies BA programme in Berlin after which students shall be able to do an MA of 2 years to the become interpreters for sign language; there is also an MA in Hamburg for graduates of interpreters who graduated with a diploma (before the Bologna process came up) which started this year. Other part-time courses allow interpreters, who already have some work experience to prepare for an interpreting exam, the so-called “Staatliche Prüfung”. By passing the exam they obtain a certification from the State as Sign Language Interpreters “approved by the State”.

University BA and diploma programmes run for three and a half years (MA: 2 additional years) full-time starting from scratch, part-time training programmes run over two or three years, but include the prerequisite of good Sign Language competence. Contents of training programmes cover a wide range of issues, often the same as Sign Language interpreter curricula in Scandinavian countries. It is not possible to give a short description of the contents. In case of further interest contact our Board.

Most important events for our association in the past year

We just went on as usual in our last year as Board, having contacts with all the institutions and authorities mentioned last year. After 4 long years and with due information beforehand, the Board wanted to step down and hand over to the next generation. This didn’t work out in the first try, so after 3 month of “emergency service”, in which the Northern Germany association namely helped out a lot, we had our second meeting to try and solve the problem of new Board. Even then, nobody wanted to take over the responsibility as it was so far, so we had to think new ways. Finally, about 10-12 persons stood up and volunteered for building a working group with the aim to change the whole system of our association: No longer shall the system be President, Vicepresident, Treasurer and Head of departments, but….we don’t know yet. The heads of the regional associations or representatives of those shall be involved more so that maybe in one or two years, our association will work fully different from now. So far, we have named 3 persons for the “old” positions to not have to let the association die, and these 3 try to get on with the help of the working group to change our Rules, constitution and form. Lets hope something good comes out of it.
One of the changes to come should be a person working for us on at least a half-time position in order to facilitate the chores for the Board.

 

Mentoring, a project started in 2008, is now running its first one-year-go with in the beginning 4, now 3 tandems of mentees and mentors. It is going to end in March 2010 and afterwards will be checked for benefits.

Most important events for German sign language interpreters in the past year

No absolutely flashing news here, struggle for details still going on, as the situation in the regions still vary and a lot of paying institutions are still unwilling to cooperate as we wish. The Board of the Deaf association changed, too, so far, we haven’t met officially and are still waiting for this, being rather occupied by our own problems (and potentials).

Goals of our association for the coming year(s)

  • Nearly everything stands back now as long as we are unclear about our survival and the form in which we will be in the next years. So first: reconstitution and consolidation, then we will set new goals for us (though projects are still there: customer education project together with the Deaf association, renewal of Code of Ethics, institution of a grievance procedure within the association, …).

For BGSD,
E. Vega Lechermann
1st delegate.
Contact:
vorstand@bgsd.de
www.bgsd.de 

 

TOPIC OF THE YEAR: Sound minds in sound hands

Topical Report Germany

1. What are the risk factors endangering most the mental and physical health of sign language interpreters (sli) in your country?

  • acute work overload to be able to pay bills, combined with the flexibility to jump when someone tells you they want interpreters tomorrow.
  • stretch between family life and business life with long computer/office working hours in the evening
  • body problems: constant strain on shoulders and wrists (mostly) and
    very little most interpreters do about it (other than complain)
  • working alone, not being able to know when one’s boundaries are stretched too much (self-reflection not enough)
  • knowing that one has done too much, but still not regenerating enough afterwards, no realization that the body needs rest, no prevention of body and mind problems
  • no realization of the significance of body and mind fitness in order to be able to work a whole life long
  • no breaks/ not enough breaks/ too short breaks/breaks that are no real breaks
  •  Unsuitable visual / acoustic/air conditions, ventilation, unsuitable chairs (often not ergonomically designed for sli), lack of preparation material,
  • lack of thoughtfulness about the needs of the sli or the deaf client, lack of vocabulary in SL
  • Experiencing limited cultural gap-bridging between Deaf and hearing in
    various ways, staying neutral all the time, not wanting to be a part of the
    conversation/ experiencing hardly bearable issues while interpreting (e.g.
    too intimate, too far away from the sli’s own way of thinking)
  • lack of teamwork with an sli-team
  • too many different visions of what sli do and therefore diverse expectations
  • too little official acknowledgement by society (approval in different forms)

2. What are the factors in the work of sli bringing upon burnout syndrome?

  • too much work
  • missing knowledge/realization of the whole problem
  • no supervisions for special settings, supervisors are often without special knowledge of our type of work and background:, consequence: sli don’t get rid of their problems and don’t talk about them
  • long driving distances in bad traffic,
  • long hours of preparation
    instead of quality time,
  • no paid leave (panic of some sli when appointments drop in summer)
  • Being directed by others (sli’s performance underlies many uncontrollable
    factors such as change of topics in the conversation, speaker's/signer's
    style, speaker's/signer's will of cooperating (e.g. preparing the sli with
    all needful information, negotiating vocabulary etc.), time pressure,
    perfectionism within the sli, lack of work-life-balance, lack of feedback,
    only little appreciation of sli in the Deaf community, inappropriate hourly
    wage (income often doesn't cover all running expenses)

3.  What methods are used to prevent the mental and physical health of sli in your country?
Nearly everywhere: relaxations courses at university to prevent, some say:

  • try to have real breaks at work without any consumers around
  • try to listen to music
  • work in teams you feel at ease with
  • try to work in „office communities“ to share costs and work among free-lancers
  • find a hobby outside the Deaf or Interpreter world 
  • plan time for sports and relaxation, give oneself a maximum of interpreting hours a week, use a masseur or osteopathist regularly for which you have to pay yourself
  • co-working when job are longer than 60 min, breaks, clear
    understanding of the SLI's role
    To prevent physical health: Some SLI learn how to stay sensitive to the body
    while interpreting, how to avoid bad body postures or movements in the job.
  • For the first time in Germany coming up in autumn: seminar on selfcare and against burnout, (offered by E. Vega Lechermann and a therapist)

4. What legal acts protect sli/determine working conditions of sli in your country?

None. We have political guidelines from the association of SLI, but they are not restrictive so that in interest of saving money companies "bribe" interpreters to go around them. (E.g.: “you work for us alone 4 hours and we will give you breaks. Or: “you work alone for 3 hours or we will give the job the another interpreter who did that before.” There are still interpreters who accept that kind of thing, unfortunately.

5. How are sli trained to avoid burnout syndrome?

Here is the view of some interpreters who wrote us:
“not at all”, “It appears that there's no particular burnout prevention covered in some of the SLI trainings. The danger of burnout that threatens every SLI should become more
discussed in the trainings and rules; skills to keep in a healthy work-life-balance should become part of the curriculum.”.

The view of the trainers: some say they do a lot, some say they do too little.

A few points:

  • Relaxation training by a specialist
  • theoretical and practical training of relaxation methods of all students together before interpreting “jobs” in a seminar: 2 hours preparation, 2 hours interpreting training, 2 hours of evaluation
  • reading texts like Harvey on (too much) empathy and Dean and Pollard on the Karasek demand-control scheme, training students in their seminars to develop different types of behaviour in an interpreting setting, developing realistic strategies in concordance with the aims they shall achieve in different stages of their studies
  • talking a lot about team work and how this can prevent burn-out
  • supervision during and after practical trainings (these differ from 8 weeks to 80 hours, depending on the training curriculum)

 

COMIC Calvin and Hobbes:

image of cartoon.