Interpreter Licensure Meeting Saturday, Feb 19, 2000 Laramie County Community College Room CCI 130 1:00 to 3:00 pm   Attendees: Kathy Plowman Amber Townsend Heather Perry Teri Rae Hart Ken Hoff Jared Dixon Barb Baumgardner Dean Cosner Regina Johnson Lori Cielinski Leilani Johnson Eric Neuman Connie Norwood Iola Cosner Lisa Kenyon Interpreters: Shelley Rowe LaNae Phillips   Barb Baumgardner offered a brief history of legislation involving the licensure of interpreters in Wyoming.   Items discussed included: Why do we need licensure? A handout was distributed which outlined why we feel licensure is important.   Who will be licensed? We discussed that we will have to decide if we want to require licensure for all interpreters, only educational interpreters, or only interpreters in special situations such as court.   What instrument will be used to determine qualifications? The variety of testing instruments available was outlined: Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) National Association of the Deaf (NAD) Independent State Certification (QA) Educational Interpreters Performance Assessment (EIPA) or create our own   How will the testing be conducted? We discussed that most of us feel it is important that evaluations be done by an outside entity so that Wyoming interpreters are not evaluating Wyoming interpreters.   Who are the stakeholders? Many stakeholders have already been identified, and include: Deaf Association of Wyoming (DAW) Wyoming Speech and Hearing Association Deaf Services Planning Committee Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Wyoming School for the Deaf Wyoming Department of Education Wyoming Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (WYRID)   Leilani Johnson from Front Range Community College presented a history of interpreter certification and testing from the establishment of RID in 1964 to the work being done on establishing a Regional Standards Board which could administer the testing of the EIPA for several states. She agreed to work with us as a resource and assist us through the process.   Everyone agreed that this project, while overwhelming, is very necessary, and committed to continue meeting to develop parameters of the project and proceed.   The group agreed that we would be part of the subcommittee on interpreter issues under the Deaf Services Planning Committee, which would allow us to better provide interpreter services for our meetings, and which is a non-partisan entity and will not taint our proceedings.   Lisa will contact everyone by e-mail to set the next meeting. It was suggested that we take advantage of the video conferencing technology we have in Cheyenne, Sheridan, and Casper to facilitate SOME meetings without the expense of travel.      Please contact Lisa Kenyon at Lkenyon@mail.lcc.whecn.edu with additions and corrections, or for more information. Lisa :)