User:Ariamaji/Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf

The Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf began at a conference in 1964 in Muncie, IN. The original members were educators, psychologists, and other professionals who worked with the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf Blind communities. The members at the time did not consider themselves to be interpreters even though they provided that service for the people in their communities.

Lead
* NEW*

The Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Inc (RID) is a non-profit organization, founded on June 16, 1964, and incorporated in 1972, that seeks to uphold standards, ethics, and professionalism for American Sign Language interpreters. RID is currently a membership organization and has begun an inquiry into transitioning to a professional organization. The RID grants credentials earned by interpreters who have passed assessments for American Sign Language to English and English to American Sign Language interpretation. RID provides a Certification Maintenance Program (CMP) to certified members in the support of skill-enhancing studies. The organization also provides the Ethical Practice System (EPS) for those who want to file grievances against members of RID. The RID also collaborated with the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) to develop the Code of Professional Conduct (CPC). The CPC Standard Practice Papers (SPP) are also available for professional interpreters to reference. RID is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.

Article body
* NEW*

History
In 1920 the Civilian Vocational Rehabilitation Act was passed to provide funds to rehabilitation agencies for people with disabilities who were not Veterans of war. In 1954 the Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendment passed and this included using interpreters but no funding to train people to become interpreters. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare enlisted a Deaf man, Boyce Williams to research the programs for Deaf people around the country in 1955. The report he gave instituted trainings for many people in ways to communicate and interact with Deaf individuals specifically related to Vocational Rehabilitation. It was in the 1960's when the United States Government had begun to pass legislation that improved the lives of people with disabilities, and encompassed the rights for post-secondary education for persons who were Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf-Blind, as well as a transition of friends and family interpreting to the idea for professional interpreters. In 1965 the advisory committee headed up by Dr. Homer D. Babbidge, Jr. presented the "Babbidge Report" or the "Education of the Deaf: A Report to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare by his Advisory Committee on the Education of the Deaf". The lack of educational access for the Deaf was highlighted and simultaneously, the Vocational Rehabilitation Administration under HEW provided a grant to Ball State Teachers College in Muncie, IN to produce a series of workshops to discuss the training of interpreters for the Deaf. It was at the first workshop in 1964, that Dr. Edgar Lowell and Dr. Ralph Hoag initiated a discussion in regards to establishing of a registry of interpreters for the deaf. On the evening of June 16, 1964, participants from the workshop met and a formal meeting led by Dr. Edgar Lowell produced the first board of the "National Registry of Professional Interpreters and Translators for the Deaf". The first President Mr. Kenneth Huff, established the by-law committee and the membership committee during the Executive Board meeting later that evening. The first members consisted of 42 hearing interpreters, 22 sustaining members, although 7 of the sustaining members stated they were interpreters as well. At this time all sustaining members were the Deaf attendees of the first meeting.

The original members were educators, psychologists, and other professionals who worked with the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf-Blind communities. The members at the time did not consider themselves to be interpreters even though they provided that service for the people in their communities. The establishment of this organization was the first time being a professional American Sign Language Interpreter was considered. Many of the original members were performing the duties of interpretation because it was necessary and without expected compensation. Many were connected to the Deaf community based on family, friends, employment, or religious association, and had careers separate from interpreting. One of the most difficult tasks that RID had to overcome was changing the perspectives of both Deaf, and Hearing clients from the interpreter being a helper to a professional. To do this RID has had partnerships with many other Deaf and Interpreter organizations. They have partnered with the National Association of the Deaf for interpreter codes of conduct, testing, and other projects. Although RID no longer has the goal for interpreter training, they have worked with the Conference of Interpreter Trainers (CIT) to help develop training programs for interpreters. Gallaudet University provided them office space in their early days.

Governance and Operations
RID is governed by an eleven-member board of directors elected directly by the voting membership for a two-year term. Voting rights are determined by being a member in good standing of both RID (in the certified or associate category) and a sanctioned affiliate chapter. The board is made up of the following positions:


 * President
 * Vice President
 * Secretary
 * Treasurer
 * Member-at-Large
 * Deaf Member-at-Large
 * Region I Representative
 * Region II Representative
 * Region III Representative
 * Region IV Representative
 * Region V Representative

Following the expiration of the president's term, they serve an ex officio non-voting term on the board of directors as Immediate Past President.

The executive board consisting of the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, member-at-large, and Deaf member-at-large, and is elected on odd years for two-year terms. The regional representative positions are elected on even years for two-year terms.

To run for election to the executive board, members must collect 25 nomination signatures from voting members with at least one from each region of RID. Regional representative candidates meet two requirements prior to nomination. The Regional representative must reside in the region for a minimum of two years and they must be a member in good standing for a minimum of 4 years. The Member-at Large requirement is not as stringent as the other members of the board. If there are two or more candidates, an election is held via on-line balloting.

* Updated*

The 2022 board of directors are as follows: RID operations are conducted by a paid staff led by an executive director. The current executive director is Star Grieser, MS, CDI, ICE-CCP

Code of Professional Conduct
As part of their push to improve the ethical behavior of practitioners in the field, RID with the collaboration of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), revised and updated the Code of Ethics. In 2005, the Code of Professional Conduct was adopted.

The tenets from the current Code of Professional Conduct include the following intentions. Under each tenant section are additional clarification statements.


 * 1) Situations and stakeholders require confidentiality before, during, and after each communication interaction.  There are some exceptions to the rule based on State mandated practices such as situations of potential harm to either the participant or others, and subpoenas.
 * 2) Each Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf-Blind person as well as each situations has their own intricacies.  An interpreter should only accept assignments that match their skill level or expertise.
 * 3) An interpreters behavior, appearance, and possible conflicts of interest are clarified in 10 subheadings under tenant number 3.
 * 4) Bestowing respect for stakeholders decisions in preferred communication access and autonomy as well as gaining consent to include interns care given under tenant 4.
 * 5) Outside of employment situations the profession also includes colleagues, interns, and students.  This tenant has 5 guidelines when working with other members of the profession.
 * 6) Business practices for interpreters include, identification to consumers of qualifications or certifications, the ability to earn compensation equating to their skill and education level, the ability to earn a living wage, professional behavior, and safe working conditions.  The 8 subheadings provide guidance for this professional behavior.
 * 7) Continuing education is the core to the final tenant.  As new laws are added and new content in a variety of disciplines emerge, an interpreter is expected to be knowledgeable and aware these changes.

RID certifications
RID has a national certification system with three key components:


 * Award Certifications to qualified interpreters based on successful requirement execution.
 * The Certification Maintenance Program (CMP) - assures the continual skill development of certified interpreters.
 * The Ethical Practices System (EPS) - gives consumers the ability to express concerns or make complaints about the quality of interpreting/transliterating services.

Certifications
In previous incarnations of the certification process RID administered their own test under the National Testing System(NTS), the following certifications were given to interpreters meeting the testing criteria (All credentials awarded by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf will remain valid as long as the holder of said certification(s) maintains their membership and maintenance program.):

Previously offered certificates:


 * CSC - Comprehensive Skills Certificate (1972–1988)
 * MCSC - Master Comprehensive Skills Certificate (1972–1988)
 * RSC - Reverse Skills Certificate - awarded only to Deaf / hard-of-hearing interpreters/transliterators (1972–1988)
 * OIC:C - Oral Interpreting Certificate, Comprehensive (1979–1985)
 * OIC: S/V - Oral Interpreting Certificate, Spoken to Visible (1979–1985)
 * OIC: V/S - Oral Interpreting Certificate, Visible to Spoken (1979–1985)
 * IC - Interpretation Certificate (1972–1988)
 * TC - Transliteration Certificate (1972–1988)
 * IC/TC - Interpretation and Transliteration Certificates (1972–1988)
 * SC: L - Specialist Certificate: Legal (first certificate version of this certification was offered 1975–1978)
 * SC: PA - Specialist Certificate: Performing Arts (1971–1988)
 * OIC: C - Oral Interpreting Certificate (1979–1983)
 * CI - Certificate of Interpretation (1988–2005)
 * CT - Certificate of Transliteration (1988–2005)
 * NIC Advanced and NIC Master (These levels were offered from 2005 to 2011)

Currently offered certificates:


 * CDI - Certified Deaf Interpreter
 * OTC - Oral Transliteration Certificate (On moratorium since August, 2015)
 * SC: L - Specialist Certificate: Legal (On moratorium since August, 2015)
 * NIC- National Interpreter Certification

RID granted certified membership to holders of the defunct NAD certification at levels III, IV and V. The certifications for these members are listed as:


 * NAD III
 * NAD IV
 * NAD V

No new certified member status is being granted for any of these categories.

As of July 6, 2022 a new certification test, developed By CASLI in cooperation with both Deaf and Hearing Interpreters was released. Members who take and pass the current CASLI  test will gain either National Interpreting Certification or Certified Deaf Interpreter credentials through the RID and will be recognized to have the skills necessary to do ASL-English interpreting through out the United States as well as parts of Canada.

Certification Maintenance Program (CMP)
The Certification Maintenance Program (CMP) is a Continuing Educations Unit (CEU) tracking system for Certified Members. For a member to maintain their certification they are required to complete 8.0 CEU's or 80 hours of education during a 4 year cycle. The four ways to earn CEU's are Workshops that are RID/ACET approved, Participant Initiated Non-RID Activities (PINRA), Academic Coursework, and Independent Study. There are two categories of CEU's. Professional Study CEU's are directly connected to the interpreting field. A member must complete 6.0 or 60 hours of Professional Study CEU's. These can be workshops or post-secondary classes, related to ASL linguistics, Deaf Culture, and other languages. A member must also gain 1.0 or 10 hours of Power, Privilege, and Oppression (PPO) CEU's that will be included in the Professional Studies category. If a member has a specialty such as Legal interpreting they must complete 2.0 or 20 hours per cycle in their specialty. General Studies are any other type of continuing education. This can be an accounting class, or a local workshop on watershed maintenance. For a person to earn CEU's in the PINRA, Academic Coursework, and Independent Study categories they need to contact a CMP Sponsor to approve and process them before and after the activity. ACET is the Associate Continuing Educations Tracking which is for members who are still working on their certification but have not yet passed the test.

Ethical Practice System (EPS)
The Ethical Practice System (EPS) processes complaints and determines actions to be taken after a review process. The EPS has been established for the public to file complaints against individual members of RID. The process for filing a complaint must be started within 90 days of the situation. The complaint can either be presented in ASL or written and in the complaint full information must be presented. The requirements include full names of both the person filing the complaint and the interpreter, date and location of incident, and finally a complete statement including evidence. The full set of requirements are in the EPS Policy Manual. After the intake is complete the case is then rejected or accepted. When the case is accepted the next step is mediation or adjudication. A final decision will be made after the case is fully investigated. If the results are unsatisfactory there is an appeal process.