Staying in Touch - PLI Awarded Protactile Interpreter Training Grant
By CM Hall, NIC Advanced, Ed:K-12 In October of 2021, the DeafBlind Interpreting National Training & Resource Center in Western Oregon University’s Research & Resource Center with Deaf* Communities received a $2.1 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). The grant has since undergone a name change to the Protactile Language Interpreting National Education Program to reflect the work better. PLI works to address the critical shortage and increase the number of qualified Protactile language interpreters with the expertise to interpret communication exchanges with DeafBlind individuals effectively. This work also addresses distantism in interpreted interactions, which refers to the privilege of distancing senses (hearing and vision) and not needing touch as a means of communication. This is the second grant PLI has received from RSA. The grant will fund projects for five years and continue work that began in 2017. The first grant cycle included
For those interpreters who regularly work in communities with greater concentrations of DeafBlind individuals, PLI is launching a Pilot cohort in 2023. The PLI Pilot creates intensive immersions for DeafBlind educators to train Protactile language interpreters.
• training nearly 30 DeafBlind leaders,
• Apply the principles of Protactile language.
• training over 150 interpreters to work with DeafBlind individuals in the United States, • the creation of online video modules that nearly 5,000 people have viewed.
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There is no other immersion opportunity to prepare interpreters in learning, practicing, applying, and interpreting in Protactile language. In an effort to increase the number of qualified interpreters in states with larger DeafBlind populations, PLI’s immersion training programs will focus on interpreters from the following noncontiguous geographic locations: CA, IL, LA, MA, MN, NC, NY, TX, and WA. PLI Pilot participants will be able to: • Compare and contrast the linguistic and cultural value differences between Protactile language and visual ASL. • Define the role of a Co-Navigator and practice guiding techniques and co-presence. • Define Protactile language and the cultural implications of autonomy.