UK Council on Deafness

Video Remote Interpreting for BSL users

We would like feedback from BSL users on a customer charter that has been developed for video interpreting services. This work is being promoted by RNID on behalf of the Deaf community.

Video interpreting services are also known as Video Remote Interpreting (VRI), it is where a deaf person and hearing person are sitting beside each other in the same place and the interpreter is in another place interpreting for them through a videophone.

We know that one of the key difficulties of Video Interpreting is that there is nothing to indicate to the Deaf community that Video interpreting is available at a particular venue. If a Deaf person were to walk down a street they would not be able to identify where the nearest videophone is this makes it hard work for them to access a VI service. We in partnership with various Video Interpreting providers in the UK, America, Northern Europe and Australia all of which confirmed that there was no logo in existence and that the development of one would benefit the Deaf community. A symbol was, developed with Interbrand a global branding specialist who generously worked at a discount in the development of the symbol. As with most things there was lots of changes of ideas between Interbrand and our icon development group which consisted of Deaf people, design team, interpreters and service providers.

Now the logo has been developed we need to ensure there are minimum standards to go with it, there is a consultation on a customer charter to accompany the symbol/logo. The document describes the level of service that you can expect when you see the video interpreter symbol. The symbol is available to any service provider that commits to maintain the standards described. They may display the symbol or use it as a means of publicly advertising this facility.

We are specifically looking for BSL users to be involved in the consultation, give us their views and to have some in-depth feedback from them. We would like a number of BSL users from your organisation to have a look at the document and suggest any recommendations they would like incorporated in to it. 3 charter documents are enclosed; a customer charter, a charter for service providers and a charter for video interpreting service providers. We would like you to specifically comment on the customer charter, the other 2 charters are for your information only. But do feel free to comment on them if you wish. I have also enclosed the logo as well.

A question we would also like you to answer is-
As a BSL user which organisation would you like to be responsible for making sure no one breaks the rules in the charter?
WFD, UKCOD, BDA, RNID or any other suggestions?

The closing date for any responses to the charter is Friday 4th February.

You can respond to the customer charter in writing or you can contact me over videophone as I am a native BSL user.

If you have a group of users and would like to have a staff member (either myself or one of my colleagues) visit your centre to present the information and answer any questions please get in touch. Alternatively if you have a videophone we can present and answer any questions via videophone.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best wishes

James Bailey
Video Interpreting Development Officer
RNID
Wilton House
5 College Square North
Belfast
BT1 6AR
02890 239619 (voice or text)
02890 327616 (fax)
Email: James.Bailey@rnid.org.uk

Customer Charters

• A guide for deaf people on accessing services using a video interpreter
• Information for service providers on using a video interpreting service
• Guidelines for video interpreting service providers

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