Free CCHI Webinar: Current State of Health Care Interpreting Certification

Posted by NITA Administrator on September 1, 2010

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreting (CCHI)

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI) is pleased to announce a free Webinar, held on September 17 at 10:00am PDT, which will generally lay out the current state of the Certification process for health care interpreters, and particularly the most pertinent issues involved in setting up a professional certification testing standard and testing methodology that meets the growing demands of our field.

The Webinar will be held under the title “Making History and Creating the CCHI Certification Tests” and features CCHI Commissioners Alejandro Maldonado, of the Minnesota Interpreting Stakeholder Group, and Natalya Mytareva, of the International Institute of Akron, Inc.

The Webinar is an exciting eyewitness presentation from two Commissioners who worked with subject matter experts—the most experienced and diverse group of healthcare interpreters possible–to create the CCHI test and procedures to achieve nationally-recognized certification.

The Webinar is free but prior registration is required! For registration, please visit the CCHI’s sign-up page here.

About the presenters:

Alejandro Maldonado serves in different committees related to language access to reduce disparities to people with LEP and addresses disparity to access and services in healthcare and social services in the state of Minnesota. He has worked in and with government agencies to move Minnesota towards developing an interpreter registry and served on an executive committee that produced a report for the state legislature on access and interpreting services in the medical field. He also works with the Interpreting Stakeholder Group, is an active member of the Latino Advisory Committee providing advice to the Minneapolis Mayor’s Office and City Council, and has been a well recognized active professional interpreter by his colleagues in the medical field for almost two decades. In addition to the study of linguistics and interpreting, Alejandro founded Avante Enterprises and flies charitable missions for Angel Flight Central.

Natalya Mytareva, a Russian interpreter/translator, started her career as instructor of various Russian/English interpretation and translation courses at Volgograd State University (Russia) in 1991. Since 2000, she has been the Communications Director of the International Institute of Akron, Inc. (IIA), responsible for coordinating the Interpreting and Translation services, Interpreter and Cultural Competence Training programs. Since 2003, Natalya has been teaching introductory courses to healthcare interpreters of various facilities in Ohio (including some of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation). She co-taught a graduate-level course Introduction to Health Care Interpreting at Kent State University (Fall 2005). She is the author and instructor of a 60-hour course for interpreters of languages of lesser diffusion Beyond-the-Basics Interpreter Terminology & Skills (BITS), which includes a 24-hour module BITS for Health Care. The course has been offered at the IIA since 2008. Natalya has delivered a variety of presentations for healthcare and social service providers on cultural competence, working with interpreters, and serving newly resettled refugee populations. Natalya holds a university degree from Volgograd State University (comparable to the U.S. MA degree) in Philology & Teaching English as a Foreign Language.

Related posts:

1. CCCI offers training to high school students as future health care interpreters
2. NITA Presents: Training for Health Care Interpreters (40 hours) – Nov. 2009
3. NITA Presents: Training for Health Care Interpreters (40 hours) – Spring 2010
4. Report From the 4th Annual National Medical Interpreter Certification Forum
5. Las Vegas Health Care Interpreter Training in November 2010