This professional development workshop will help students and professional social workers learn and appreciate the role of language in social work practice. All social workers, monolingual and multilingual alike, perform the role of language interpreter (and/or translator) in practice. Ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in practice calls for methods, philosophies, and tools that can allow us to build relationships across class, gender, immigration status, sexuality, language and race. Interpretation- facilitating communication across lines that might otherwise divide communities is essential to working towards our commitment to DE&I. Participants will learn methods and strategies for interpretation with special attention to the potential for power imbalances that influence the way in which communication is mediated through an interpreter.
Program
8:30 AM: Continental Breakfast
9 - 10:30 AM: Workshop I: Translation and Interpretation in Micro and Macro Social Work Practice
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM: Workshop II: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion through Language Interpretation in Social Work Practice
12 - 2: PM: Working Lunch - Small group Discussions and Large Group Conclusions and Recommendations