Provision of language services, 1985: survey of community service providers

This study forms part of the Review of the Provision of Language Services in Australia, and is a companion study to two other surveys: the survey of non-English speakers (au.edu.anu.ada.ddi.00591) and the survey of language service providers (au.edu.anu.ada.ddi.00592). The aims of this study were: to identify those community service providers, both government and non-government, which have regular contact with non-English speaking clients; to identify the means by which they communicate with their non-English speaking clients, as well as the effectiveness of those means; to assess their overall requirements in terms of language services; to reveal the extent to which they rely on language services provided by other agencies; and to identify any shortfall in the provision of language services by community service providers. Topics covered include: frequency that the organisation deals with non-English speaking clients; translation and interpreting services provided in-house by both trained staff and bilingual or multilingual staff, and advertising of these services; referral of clients to other organisations for translation or interpreting, and reasons for doing so; types of organisations to which referrals are given; breakdown of services provided in individual languages; languages in which printed materials are requested; assessment of the level of need of clients; staff training, qualifications and accreditation.