During this Peer Support and Consultation Project for Interpreters (PSCPI) session, participants will focus their discussion on managing strong emotions as it pertains to interpreting in secure facility settings. 

The Peer Support and Consultation Project for Interpreters (PSCPI) is a unique, experiential approach to confronting and ameliorating compassion fatigue and vicarious traumatization. These conditions have the potential to erode attitude, self-management, neutrality, community, professionalism, and overall effectiveness of interpreters. Intelligent protective factors are integrated into the design of the PSCPI meetings. This group provides a fresh, supportive and challenging environment where interpreters can learn and share self-management tools while reviewing, reflecting and sharing the sources and impacts of professional stress. Through this unique sharing, members lessen the impact of this type of stress on their lives and the increase the quality of their personal and professional relationships.

​In the broadest sense, the goal of all interpreters, including medical and mental health interpreters, is to work effectively and comfortably in the many and varied settings we encounter. Interpreters are on the front-lines of patient care provision, working with sex offenders, survivors of abuse, and more. We all work with people who have experienced oppression, pain and sometimes trauma, simply by being part of a linguistic and cultural minority. Certainly that oppression is systemic – sometimes that system includes their own families. Part of our work will bring us into close proximity with intensity, trauma and oppression. Naturally, there are profound personal, professional and societal benefits to working in these settings. There are also unavoidable negative consequences that we need to acknowledge. Interpreters everywhere have developed unique short and long-term strategies for managing the ‘shadow’ side of our work.

It is critical that interpreters and the systems that employ interpreters, recognize that as a result of working in these more ‘highly charged’ settings, there is increased risk for vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, among other occupational hazards, too. Medical personnel, corrections, police, attorneys, among others, are vulnerable to these conditions that lead to diminished professionalism and zest for life. The consequences can be devastating for all who work in close proximity to the pain and trauma of others.

Educational Objectives:

Participants will:
– Discuss their the interpreting work environment, intra-personal, inter-personal, and systemic demands and generate personalized solutions for how to enhance their effectiveness as an interpreter working in secure facility settings
– Analyze their ethical and personal challenges in a structured case consultation format to develop insights into the demands and controls of their work in secure facility settings
– Recognize and apply techniques for increasing tolerance for ambiguity and managing strong emotions while interpreting in secure facility settings