30 October 2009
26 October 2009
Carolyn live on Five Live
Our chairman, Carolyn Burgess (who is also the president of the Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce), took to the airwaves last Friday on a BBC Five Live discussion about the local economy.
Click here to read more on the Chamber of Commerce blog.
15 October 2009
Mental health — why the interpreter is so crucial to patient well-being
One person in four — regardless of culture, age or background — will experience some type of mental illness and seek help. The aims of mental health professionals are to diagnose, to treat and to manage risk. Accurate and current information is vital for mental health staff and service users, meaning that the interpreter really is 'part of the team'.
Since 2006, Language is Everything has been the preferred supplier of interpreting services to Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest specialist NHS mental health trusts in England.
Earlier this week we ran our first Interpreting Mental Health training courses at the Park Royal Centre for Mental Health and the Gordon Hospital. The courses were delivered by Gillian Trainor, the lead nurse at Brent Mental Health Services.
Dawn Bowes, the senior account manager at Language is Everything, said:
"Mental health professionals need to know exactly what a person is experiencing — they need facts to enable them to make clinical judgements.
"The linguists' code of practice allows interpreters to intervene to clarify meaning, and in a mental health setting the temptation is to try to make sense of information that is totally delusional.
"But as part of diagnosing and monitoring a patient's mental health condition, mental health professionals require a word-for-word — and possibly 'meaningless' — translation. As Gillian said: 'As far as possible, tell it like it is, tell us what you are hearing'."
The picture below shows some of our interpreters holding their Interpreting Mental Health certificates, with Gillian Trainor third from right in the front row and Dawn Bowes second from right in the front row.
12 October 2009
New title reflects change of focus
Language is Everything has announced that its chief executive, Carolyn Burgess, has become the company's chairman.
"Over the past few years, we've been building a brilliant team of people who are gradually taking over the operational side of our business," said Carolyn. "This has meant that, over time, my role has evolved and become more and more strategic. The idea of changing my job title is to reflect this shift in focus."
In addition to being the chairman of Language is Everything, Carolyn is president of Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce. She also sits on the boards of Hull Forward, an economic development company, and AfrOx, an organisation aiming to improve cancer prevention and control in Africa.
It was also announced last week that she had been appointed a non-executive director of Business Link Yorkshire.
"With Language is Everything," said Carolyn, "my work is now very much about talking to key people in the public and private sectors about 'the big picture' of language, culture and communication. The world is becoming more and more multilingual — how can British business thrive in a world where the English language doesn't always rule? Meanwhile, Britain itself is becoming more and more multicultural — how can language help us to build integrated and cohesive communities? These are the questions I'm focussed on."
Last week Carolyn made her second trip this year to Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, where she is working to improve the UK's links with francophone Africa. This week she is in Brussels as part of a British Chambers of Commerce delegation.
02 October 2009
Customer service is everything
More great news from the Language is Everything operations team: we're proud to announce that 19-year-old Zoe Longhorn, who has been working with us for nearly two years, has been awarded a level 2 NVQ in customer service.
"Completing the NVQ has given me more confidence in dealing with customers and helped me build on my other skills in customer service," said Zoe, who worked towards the award with East Riding Training Services, part of East Riding of Yorkshire Council.
Meanwhile Zoe, along with her colleagues Tanith Reay and Marie Ring, has also completed Yorkshire Passion, a service quality training programme created by the acclaimed playwright John Godber. The aim of Yorkshire Passion is to "empower delegates to deliver service with passion about this part of Yorkshire by becoming ambassadors and promoters for the region."
29 September 2009
Congratulations, Hannah!
Congratulations to Hannah Brigham, our trainee manager, who has been awarded a level 3 certificate in personnel practice by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Hannah passed five units related to the management and development of people, and gained a distinction for performance management & employee relations.
"This course has given me a great insight into the foundations of personnel practice," said Hannah, "and I'm looking forward to putting it all into action."
Meanwhile, following on from last weekend's European Day of Languages, here are the answers to the questions we set at the beginning of this month: the word 'giraffe' comes from Arabic; Hong Kong means 'fragrant harbour' in Cantonese; and you can download our Hungarian 'travel survival card' here!
09 September 2009
Clipper 09-10: four days to go
This Sunday sees the start of the 35,000-mile Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race from Hull. The crews will travel to Brazil, South Africa, Australia, China, California and the Caribbean before returning to Hull in July 2010. What makes the race unique is that nearly half the 400 people taking part had never been aboard a sailing yacht until they started training for the event.
Carolyn Burgess (our chief exec and the president of the Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce) got a small taste of what the crews will be up against when she took to the ocean for a few hours aboard the Hull & Humber yacht. As befits the head of a language company, she soon picked up the lingo — to an extent. "I was at the helm," she said, "and I did the ropey thing, too."
Hull & Humber will be up against nine other teams from all over the world, and this blog will be keeping a close eye on their progress over the coming months.
03 September 2009
European Day of Languages
There are just over three weeks to go until the European Day of Languages, celebrated every year on 26th September.
The Council of Europe, which organised the first European Day of Languages in 2001, says that:
"Throughout Europe, 800 million Europeans represented in the Council of Europe's 47 member states are encouraged to learn more languages, at any age, in and out of school. Being convinced that linguistic diversity is a tool for achieving greater intercultural understanding and a key element in the rich cultural heritage of our continent, the Council of Europe promotes multilingualism in the whole of Europe."
As always, Dawn Bowes (our senior account manager here at Language is Everything) will be 'out and about' talking to schoolchildren that week. Some of the questions she'll be answering are: which language does the word 'giraffe' come from? What does Hong Kong mean in Cantonese? And how do you say 'hello' in Hungarian? (We'll bring you the answers on this blog at the end of the month!)
19 August 2009
"Don't tell me words don't matter"
The Yorkshire International Business Convention Magazine 2009 is out now. The YIBC at Bridlington Spa was the final day of Business Week, a 5-day extravaganza of enterprise and 'can-do' sponsored by Language is Everything. The event has always been about big names and thought-provoking ideas: this year's highlights included John Cleese on the creative mind, and Dave Stewart on the future.
So, in true YIBC style, our one-page advert in the 2009 Magazine features a quote from Barack Obama to get you thinking...
Download YIBC Magazine 2009 advert (PDF, 420KB)
29 July 2009
Proud to support Young Enterprise
Language is Everything will be teaming up with The Snaith School, a specialist school in business and enterprise, for the 2009/10 academic year. The school will be running a Young Enterprise course as part of its business, administration and finance diploma.
"We're very excited about lending our support to this project," said Carol Curtis, our MD. "Snaith School is the only school in the area that is running this kind of course with private sector backing, and we're all looking forward to getting started in September."