Using Early Support with families who don't speak English
This section is about bridging the communication gap when families don't speak English. This page highlights the importance of communication for partnership working and provides some background information about translation and interpretation.
Early Support is based on the principle of partnership working with families. Partnership means:
- working closely together, with active participation and involvement
- sharing power, with parents leading
- complementary expertise
- negotiating and agreeing aims and process
- mutual trust and respect.
Read more about partnership working.
Read a case study about using Early Support with a non-English speaking family.
Effective partnership depends on good communication. England has many diverse communities. Understanding that children and families come from different cultural backgrounds and have different communication requirements is central to the success of Early Support in practice.
’Providing information and greater transparency about decision making will empower families to find their own ways to meet the needs of their disabled child, their other children and themselves.’
Aiming High for Disabled Children
National Core Offer
Translation and interpretation
Interpreting and translating are different skills.
Translation deals with the written word. A translator works with written material, translating documents from one language to another.
Interpreting deals with the spoken word. An interpreter attends in person and interprets back and forth between a number of people when more than one spoken language is being used.
An interpreter is needed whenever people do not use the same language, but everyone needs to understand clearly what is being said, so that they can participate, put across their point of view, share information and make decisions. For families using Early Support, interpretation may be needed to support face to face meetings, telephone conversations, appointments where a child’s situation is being assessed or reviewed and meetings where a Family Service Plan will be agreed.
Many authorities and PCTs provide interpreting services, but they usually need to be booked well ahead of time.
Beyond words
Translation and interpretation should manage the cultural sensitivity and appropriateness of language as well as meaning and grammar. Non-verbal behaviour is powerful and may have different significance in other cultures. So it’s important not make assumptions about messages carried by eye contact, lack of eye contact, gestures, volume of voice or ‘body language’.
Some languages operate strict rules for courteous address and use different names to indicate different levels of formality. Others use different words and grammatical structures in response to the gender of the person being addressed. Interpreters can help by explaining some of this to you. This can help to prevent unintended offence being taken on either side when people from different communities talk to one another.
Find out more about language services and about professional qualifications and standards for translators and interpreters by visiting the website for the National Centre for Languages (CILT).
There's more ...
... read about different interpreting techniques
... see how to help interpreters to do a good job
... find out more about using written translations, including some Early Support publications in translation
... listen to audio versions of the Background Information booklets in English - these are for families who understand but don't read English.
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