Obtención del extracto proteico de las líneas celulares empleadas como control

Trust was found to be an important part of the social work participants’ work with interpreters and in the social work profession, as discussed in chapter eight. There is a wealth of literature pertaining to trust (Smith, 2001; Möllering, 2003; 2006; Brownlie, Greene and Howson (eds), 2008). The findings suggested that the social workers mobilise Discourses about trust and distrust inherent in their use of all forms of interpreters, including child interpreters.

Trust is considered to be an important concept in the context of relationship building and maintenance between social workers and service users and inter and intra-professional

180 relationships (Brehm and Gates, 2004; Pinker, 2013). A number of studies have highlighted that persons LEP are required to mobilise trust in professionals (both practitioners and interpreters) and others who provide linguistic support (Edwards et al., 2006; Nawyn et al., 2012). As previously mentioned, the social workers were cognisant of the potential for missed meaning and the possibility that messages might not be translated as per their or the service users’ intention. Despite this, the social workers remained dependent on interpreting provision, however trust remained an issue. It is useful to draw upon a number of

understandings of trust. Möllering (2003; 2006), argues that trust can be considered as a ‘suspension’ or a ‘leap in faith’ and that people ‘activate trust’ (Möllering, 2003). Edwards et al., (2006) draw upon the work of Giddens (1994a; 1998) to distinguish between ‘personal’ or ‘characteristic’ based trust and ‘abstract’ trust. Personal/characteristic trust refers to bonds among individuals that have a familiar interest in others’ needs, interests and preferences. This relates to an expectation that the interpreting task will be carried out according to shared understandings. Abstract trust refers to a person’s expert knowledge, competence and

adherence to particular principles and duties, and can be related to formal interpreters. Thus, bilingual social workers and colleagues’ understanding of social work procedures and values could be said to promote social workers’ reason to trust these persons to interpret.

The social work participants’ concern was that while the outsourced interpreters were

understood to be professionals, they were thought to have limited understanding of the social work role. This could be argued to limit abstract trust. It is important to note that there is currently no requirement for interpreters in social work encounters to be professionally trained or certified. This is in contrast to the language services standards that apply to the Ministry of Justice.21 The findings suggest that trust is not synonymous with efficiency and this can be related to research by Edwards et al., (2006) who found that that trust was a key element for people who used interpreting provision from non-professional interpreters, family members and professional interpreters, however different understandings of trust did not mean that messages would be translated in the required way. In the present study, one social work participant was a trained interpreter, the other social workers that interpreted were not trained interpreters. This augments the argument that being bilingual does not translate to being culturally and institutionally competent (Lishman, 1994; Pugh, 1996; Casado, Negi and

21 _{The Ministry of Justice has responsibility for HM Courts and Tribunal Services, Probation and the}

181 Hong, 2012). It may also be explained by the idea of personal trust. In relation to the use of children as interpreters, while some challenges were identified by the participants, one of the reasons to use children was based on ‘personal’ trust, namely, the expectation that the child had knowledge and interest in their parents’ situation and preferences.

It is important to situate the concepts of trust and uncertainty in the context of social work as a profession. Despite advances in translation and interpreting provision (Alexander et al., 2004; Sawrikar, 2013b) and the use of outsourced interpreting provision, the findings indicate that social workers were mistrustful of interpreters. This resonates with arguments from Beck (1994) who suggests that despite advances in technology and investments to calculate cost- evaluation approaches to intervention, there are hazards brought about by the development of the ‘expert system’ and the erosion of trust to the advance of scientific knowledge. Hence, interpreter-mediated encounters may tend to be treated as a ‘risky’ process; however identification of this risk does not tell us what social workers should do. As Beck (1994) states: ‘risks tell us what should not be done but not what should be done’ (Beck, 1994:p.9). Smith (2001; 2005) argues that trust is of minimal importance because social work is

characterised by rationality, with emphasis placed on service providers’ confidence to meet targets and performance indicators. This has parallels with trust in health care, for example, Sheach Leith (2008) argues that the NHS is no longer a trusted institution following a series of high-profile scandals.22 Thus, whether or not interpreters are informal or formal may be irrelevant, as Möllering argues:

[i]nstitutions can be seen as bases, carriers and objects of trust, trust between actors can be based on institutions, trust can be institutionalized, and institutions themselves can only be effective if they are trusted (Möllering, 2006:p.74).

Hence, risk anxiety is perpetuated by broader pressures for social workers to satisfy

inspecting bodies and a sceptical wider public that they are ‘doing the right thing’ (Taylor and White, 2000).

182 Despite the numerous concerns raised about formal interpreting provision, the social workers remained dependent upon this provision. This emphasises the need to examine the social work and interpreter co-working arrangement. As Raval (2007) argues, the service user:

…is unlikely to develop trust and a sense of being contained if they do not experience this between the practitioner and language interpreter (Raval, 2007:p.66).

Trust is related to the concept of ‘risk’, as according to Luhmann (1988), trust presupposes risk (cited in Christensen, 2013). This helps to explain why social workers may experience ‘risk anxiety’ in their work with interpreters regardless of whether a formal or informal interpreter is used, given their understanding that some risks cannot be eliminated (Ferguson, 2005). This highlights the idea that miscommunication often remains an ‘off-the-record matter’ between the interpreter and interlocutor, given the difficulties of translating and to co- ordinating activities that this involves (Wadensjö, 1998; Temple, 2002; 2006; 2009). Temple argues there is not a correct way of translating, as this involves more than an exchange of words from one language to another in which there are a plethora of alternative words, which could be used.

Having discussed the findings from interviews with the social work participants about their work with interpreters I now discuss the participants’ use of informal interpreting resources, with focus on children and bilingual colleagues.