Between December 2013 – May 2016 a team of international experts, comprising hearing and deaf researchers and signed language interpreter practitioners across Europe, collaborated on the Justisigns project. The consortium is made up of 7 partners from Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland and UK. They are Interesource Group (Ireland) Limited, Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, efsli (European Forum of Sign Language Interpreters), EULITA (European Legal Interpreters’ & Translators’ Association), KU Leuven in Belgium, University of Applied Sciences of Special Needs Education in Switzerland and Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. Justisigns is co-funded through the European Commission’s Leonardo Da Vinci Lifelong Learning programme.
The aim of Justisigns was to address the barriers that Deaf people had encountered when interacting with the criminal justice system, the goal being to develop materials, workshops and training for professional people working within legal settings to provide better, accessible services to Deaf people. The project focused on promoting equal access to the justice system for Deaf users of signed languages and sought to understand the experiences of professionals who had interacted with Deaf people. The project resulted in training materials available to signed language interpreters, legal professionals and Deaf signed language users. Specifically, the focus of the project was access to police settings.
For more information, go to the Justisigns website (click on the image below) where you can access the range of resources available, for free, online. Here you will find:
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Executive Summary of Research Survey – Download here
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Executive Summary in ISL VGT DSGS BSL INTERNATIONAL
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Communication Guide for Police in the UK
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Online Course Pages – Click here
Other relevant articles:
You have the Right to Remain Signing: A guide to communicating in interpreter-mediated police interviews. A guide for police officers who need to communicate with a deaf sign language user.
Justisigns: Promoting access to legal settings for deaf sign language users by Robert Skinner.
Proximity Interpreting 