| Culturesmart
Launches the Fourth Edition of Its
Multilingual Medical Interpreter
Training Course
April 23, 2006
Culturesmart is pleased to announce
the release of its completely revised
and updated multilingual training
for medical interpreters. The
Essential Piece™ training course is
now offered to bilingual staff at
healthcare practices throughout
the country and to qualified individuals
who are interested in becoming medical
interpreters. Its design and skill-building
curriculum have been developed specifically
to address the needs of healthcare
organizations and their bilingual
staff.
This latest revision is the result
of a two-year project involving
more than 12 expert consultants,
including Cynthia E. Roat, MPH and
Shani Dowd, LCSW (biomedicine chapter).
These consultants assisted us in
making the curriculum even more
relevant to meeting medical interpreters’
ever-changing needs. We implemented
changes based on feedback from customers
and training participants. The revisions
include:
- Redesigning the order of delivery;
- Developing additional training
modules that allow further customization
of the program for specific audiences;
and
- Restructuring the program for
cost-effective on-site delivery
at health care facilities throughout
the U.S.
In redeveloping and launching this
program in its updated form, we
maintained five key principles:
- The course had to be delivered
over a period of at least six
weeks so there would be plenty
of time in between sessions for
participants to absorb and put
material into practice.
- The course had to be offered
in English and the target languages
spoken by attendees.
- We needed to have a rigorous
screening process prior to admission
to ensure that candidates have
sufficient language proficiency
to become medical interpreters.
- We needed to have a realistic
screening process at the end of
the training to ensure that candidates
are meeting the basic standards
that the training seeks to teach.
- The course had to be delivered
by full-time practitioners in
healthcare, training, and interpreting-related
fields so that participants would
be exposed to the depth and breadth
of knowledge necessary for continued
professional growth.
The new curriculum, called The
Essential Piece™, builds on
our nine years of experience training
over 1,000 interpreters who speak
more than 21 different languages.
The new name, The Essential Piece™,
symbolizes two important principles:
• The critical, yet underrated
role that the trained, qualified
and screened medical interpreter
plays in assuring quality health
care for patients with limited English,
and
• The power of our program
to turn bilingual staff into trained,
qualified interpreting personnel
capable of providing health care
organizations with the greatest
return on minimal investments.
Culturesmart offers a broad range
of options for collaboration, including
a licensing program that enables
clients’ in-house trainers
to deliver The Essential Piece™
training curriculum.
###
If you’d like more information
about The Essential Piece™
curriculum or if you are interested
in bringing this training to your
area, please call Greg Figaro
at 617-890-1111 or send us an
email at info@culturesmart.org
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