STEP NI

About S.T.E.P.'s Interpreter Sevices

The Race Relations (NI) Order 1997 and The Northern Ireland Act 1998 cite that Public bodies have a statutory duty to provide language support where required, and failure to comply would be open to challenge as “indirect discrimination”.  

Based at the S.T.E.P. offices in Dungannon Business Park, S.T.E.P. Interpreter and Translation  Services  currently has  over 250 Interpreters registered – approximately 80% of whom are qualified with the remainder trainees, on its database with Interpreter Services covering over 30 languages,  from  Bulgarian to Tetum, Russian to Creole.   We have at present 33 qualified translators covering 21 different languages. All Registered Interpreters have undergone accredited training before acceptance onto the project. Most are recruited from the multi-lingual migrant population.

To date, S.T.E.P. has provided interpretation services for statutory providers in healthcare, education and welfare as well as schools, employers etc. All provision is co-ordinated and quality-controlled by the Interpreting & Translation team.

Through the NIMEITS partnership, S.T.E.P Interpreter Services along with Chinese Welfare Association and Ballymena Community Forum Ethnic Minority Project, secured a tender in December 2004 to deliver Interpretation and Translation Services for the Department of Employment and Learning and the Social Security Agency.  Our criteria and systems for our translations services have recently been restructured in order to deliver a higher quality provision and to comply with our new contract with the CSA / Regional Supplies Services for translations services to the HSS in Northern Ireland.

In January 2006, S.T.E.P. employed three full-time Interpreters who cover a number of external appointments and spend one day per week in the S.T.E.P. office providing Interpretation support to staff and clients of S.T.E.P. (See Contact Us section in Migrant Support Project)