Language Talks: Interpersonal demands and their implications for effective interpreter-mediated Mental Health Act Assessments

Join us for a presentation with Rebecca Tipton exploring mental health and interpretation.

This presentation concerns the Interpreters for Mental Health Act Assessment (INforMHAA) study (2020-2023), a transdisciplinary and multi-institutional study funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, School for Social Care Research. The project focuses on the role of Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHPs), who play a vital role in safeguarding the rights of those assessed under the Mental Health Act (MHA) 1983, ensuring that options other than compulsory admission are investigated. Although there is a legal requirement to ensure a person’s language needs are fully met if they do not use spoken English, the ability of AMHPs to interview people in a ‘suitable manner’ relies on effective interprofessional working relationships with interpreters.

Drawing on interviews with AMHPs and (sign and spoken language) Interpreters, the presentation explores the complexities of decision-making in situations where a person may be experiencing an acute mental health crisis, which might entail experiencing disordered thoughts and communicating in highly disfluent ways. The discussion is supported by Dean and Pollard’s Demand Control Schema (2013), a framework which offers the basis for a comprehensive analysis of the various ‘demands’ facing interpreters in their work. Being able to articulate a demand and formulate a plausible response (or ‘control’) is a first stage in effective interprofessional working; however, when assumptions about the demands of interpreting or the demands of the assessment are misplaced due to the lack of shared understanding about each professional’s role and responsibilities, certain anticipated ‘controls’ (e.g. ‘just interpret’) create barriers.

Join the meeting via Zoom

The speakers

Rebecca Tipton PhD is a Lecturer in Interpreting and Translation Studies at the University of Manchester in the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies (CTIS). Her key publications include Routledge Handbook of Translation and Pragmatics (Routledge, 2019), and Dialogue Interpreting: A guide to interpreting in public services and the community (Routledge, 2016). A new publication with Routledge is currently in press (2023): The Routledge Guide to Teaching Ethics in Translation and Interpreting Education. Rebecca is a Co-Investigator on the INforMHAA study, working alongside Professor Alys Young (Principal Investigator, University of Manchester), Professor Sarah Vicary (Co-Investigator, Open University), Professor Jemina Napier (Co-Investigator, Heriot-Watt University), Dr Natalia Rodríguez-Vicente (Co-Investigator, University of Essex), Dr Celia Hulme (University of Manchester).c

About the series

"Language Talks" are presentations by leading and emerging voices in the field of language and applied linguistics, selected and introduced by colleagues in the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics (LAL) at the Open University.