“I now look at everything I do in a more thought out way, thinking of my decisions consciously and working out what is appropriate to do in different contexts. I can learn a lot from listening to other interpreter's experiences - positive or negative(!) - to understand their dilemmas and how they overcame them, and it's such a supportive environment. It's good to receive feedback from your own experiences, and give feedback to others - we all work together as one big team. This is an opportunity to get together and remember we have a team that supports us and goes through the same things we do.”

Every assignment is a learning opportunity, not only for the practitioner, but for other group members.

Reflective Practice Groups offers a day of structured and facilitated discussion using examples of real interpreting assignments to tease out the relevant factors that influence our decision-making, and our behaviour as professional practitioners.

Based on work developed from Dean and Pollard’s Demand-Control schema and consequence-based ethical reasoning, we delve into each assignment, identifying times when our professional choices influenced the outcome.

We embrace the theory that we are not simply conduits, but that our actions and behaviour have real and relevant impact on the assignments we are involved in.

Each assignment is different.  The participants, the environment, the relationships in the room, how we feel about being there and a myriad of other considerations all combine to create a unique situation within which we need to be at our best.

We make decisions in our practice, based on what we consider the right thing to do.    Ethical decisions are informed, mostly, by our own values and the values of the people, environments and colleagues we come into contact with.  We consider the consequences of our actions before making a decision, favouring our fundamental ethical tennets to do no harm and act in the best interests of our clients. 

The decisions that we make need to be steered by the views of fellow professionals.  It is important, therefore, that we meet regularly to, as Dennis Cokely says, “re-examine those values, principals and beliefs that underscore and shape the decisions we make and the actions we undertake.”

A day offering reassurance, heightened awareness of what we do in practice, and a comprehensive framework around which to develop strategies for continuous improvement. 

This day session is included in the ESP Package each quarter.

Feedback from participants can be read here.