By Scott Van Nice

The growing popularity of Video Relay Services (VRS) demonstrates the old and oft-repeated maxim: “Get something, lose something.” In this case, we are facing the potential loss of access to ample quality sign language interpreters for our classes, career opportunities, doctor appointments or even wedding functions.

For some of the readers here who are unfamiliar with VRS, it involves a deaf user seeing a sign language interpreter for the deaf via a webcam or some equivalent technological appliance when making a call to a hearing person. Once a connection is made between the deaf user and the interpreter, the interpreter then relays the conversation back and forth between the deaf user and the hearing person. See Sorenson Communications detailing what VRS does.

In this posting, I will explain the benefits of VRS services for the deaf and the sign language interpreters. Then I will demonstrate why the popularity of VRS services should be vetted carefully. Finally, I will outline the steps that the deaf community may take to ensure that the VRS services does not create an economic divide where those who have the resources can receive sign language interpreters and get ahead while those that do not will end up being left behind.

Right now, there is no doubt that VRS services are remarkable for both sides of the fence. VRS has allowed deaf people to feel that they are on an equal playing field with their colleagues. They can make a reservation at a restaurant that may not have time to listen to an IP relay operator or be able to speed through a maze of touchtone options. In addition, VRS services have created many job opportunities for the deaf in various technological or management positions.

From the interpreters’ perspective, VRS provides a variety of choices and offers higher salaries, more flexible hours and several other tangible benefits. The tangible benefits usually involve increased recognition while being provided opportunities to receive management training, education, credits, and travel to conferences. More importantly, the market for interpreters has broadened considerably due to the increased chances of getting a job quickly upon graduation with an interpreting degree. Finally, if they work at a VRS location, then they are able to pick up the different nuances and signing accents that all of us possess.

Yet, VRS services have resulted in a marked decrease of qualified community sign language interpreters. Each new VRS center saps the number of interpreters available from the local community. See the latest list of Sorenson locations that are being set up which includes this comment:

Additional Sorenson VRS Interpreting Centers are opening monthly in various regional locations around the nation.

It should also be noted that Sorenson is not the only company setting up VRS centers; all the other VRS companies are also expanding their locations but as of now, detailed comparisons are difficult to procure because Sorenson is the only company that has made comprehensive information about its VRS centers available to the public.

In the meantime, the effect of VRS centers on local deaf communities has not gone unnoticed. See Sorenson detailing looming VRS shortage. In other words, the impact on those not working in a fully inclusive signing environment is substantial. For example, before VRS services grew at an exponential rate, I had a sign language interpreter on an average of three to four times a week for several meetings. I felt empowered while meeting the company’s expectations of my work. Now, I find myself competing for interpreters which have caused me to scale back my meetings and my involvement in the corporate environment. I have started to search for alternative solutions and right now, in the meantime, I can see my career being impacted to an extent because I have had to cancel meetings, ask other people to present in my place, and turn down an opportunity to travel. I no longer feel as empowered as I did before.

Furthermore, my problems do not end when I go home. During the evenings, I am a part-time law student, and receiving interpreters has not always been easy. That is why I deeply appreciate my interpreters because many interpret during the day and then work as a part-time VRS employee in the evening. Often those interpreters who work as a full-time VRS employee are not interested in working in the evenings.

At one point, I had to hire a private sign language interpreter to interpret for me on the Trial Advocacy team for a law school competition because she has strong sign-to-voice skills. The school, at the time, didn’t understand that just knowing sign language does not automatically mean that an interpreter can voice well. Misunderstandings, even on the slightest scale, can be fraught with peril when you are making precise legal arguments. More recently, I had to persuade another top sign language interpreter to interpret at a recent Adoption Law moot court tournament. The evening practices took a heavy toll on her because she works as a community interpreter and also at VRS locations in the evenings.

Both scenarios ended well but I learned two lessons. First, I was lucky because I had several resources available to me as well as my friendship with several interpreters who understood my situation and tried to help me. Second, the overall experience left me feeling cynical once I spoke to several well established leaders in the deaf community regarding the interpreter shortage. Some concluded that the reason why more deaf people aren’t concerned about this issue is because they don’t care. One person told me that I could carry a webcam with me or arrange VRS/VRI (Video Relay Interpreting) services for every meeting. Another person observed that many in the deaf community work in a near inclusive signing environment or prefer little interaction with hearing people so the issue is not as important to many of them.

I didn’t appreciate those comments because each of us likely know deaf people who have entered various fields e.g. engineering, law, medicine, public policy or graduate studies. In addition, many young deaf and hard of hearing high school students are heading off to various colleges as a result of even more accommodations being made available for them; not all of them are limiting their options to CSUN, NTID/RIT or Gallaudet University. But, if we don’t come up with ways to help ensure that the availability of strong, qualified interpreters are present for their post-degree ambitions in the working world, then it will be much harder for those deaf students to demonstrate that it is the ability that counts, not whether they are hard of hearing, profoundly deaf, late-deafened, and so forth. That said, we need to take a long and hard look at ourselves and decide how to address this growing crisis.

One solution could be to encourage VRS agencies take a proactive lead, if they haven’t done so already, by offering incentives. For example, if VRS interpreters provide “x” amount of hours for the local community, then they would receive “y” amount of incentives such as longer vacation time or other rewards. I also suspect that certain agencies that want state or municipal “breaks” or seek to entrench themselves more favorably with the deaf community may receive more credibility and support if they adopted such a system.

In addition, the National Association for the Deaf (NAD) typically takes the lead in identifying solutions when there’s a widespread impact on the deaf community but there is little public information about what NAD is doing to take a more proactive stance on this crisis. As of now, it appears that the organization seems to be more concerned with the quality of VRS services and not its long-term impact. See e.g., NAD ensuring that VRS services are available 24/7 and NAD working to improve VRS working conditions. While those actions are a good start, I’d like to hear more about the findings of the NAD Ad Hoc Committee on Interpreting established in 2005 and led by Sherri L. Collins to address this specific situation and whether NAD plans to take specific and concrete steps.

Another solution is to view this as an opportunity for deaf entrepreneurs and there are at least three possible avenues. One could explore establishing a specialized [for-profit] interpreting agency that offers specialized interpreters (e.g. courtroom interpreting, medical services interpreting and so forth) where they are paid a salary and provided benefits that are commensurate with their skills.

The second opportunity could involve creating a consulting firm and where one would advise corporations interested in hiring interpreters, to ensure that their deaf employees receive the right accommodations due to the current interpreter shortage. There are plenty of Fortune 500 companies that might be interested in having some sort of a support group in place.

The third could be to develop some kind of a headhunter service for employers who are unfamiliar with the practice of hiring sign language interpreters, and would like immediate assistance in finding the right sign language interpreters for a variety of scenarios. Several common situations might include a deaf employee being asked to relocate to another city but both the employee and the employer aren’t sure whether that region has any qualified interpreters or an employer would like to hire a full-time interpreter and needs to find the right match.

The bottom line: if we don’t plan accordingly, be creative, and adjust with the times, then those who don’t have the resources to obtain the services of qualified interpreters will continue to lag even further behind those who have access to a large pool of interpreters, the financial means to hire personal interpreters, or a job in an environment supportive of the deaf. This impacts all of our efforts towards economic empowerment for the deaf and hard of hearing community. That, in itself, strikes me as horribly unfair and a potential major setback.

Scott Van Nice is a Chevy Chase, Maryland native who graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). He works full-time at a corporation in Cincinnati while attending law school as a part-time student. He’s also engaged to a very wonderful woman who has the amazing ability to put up with Scott’s incessant spoiling of their dog, Jade.

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