For more about SignVideo, have a look at their bilingual website. AtW is short for Access to Work run by the government.
Transcript:
Hello.
Today I’m very excited because I’ve just read
that SignVideo has an understanding with AtWwhere AtW can now provide me with funding to
use their services for communication support.This I am excited about. I’ll explain why.
The current situation is that I have to book
for an interpreter to come onsite at workwhich works well but I still have to book
each appointment for a minimum of 3 hours.This means I have to, sort of, formalise my meetings
by having them fixed and arranged back to back.Each meeting would usually be half hour or an hour
with colleagues.The thing is that, although it can work well,
it can be at times inconvenientas I really like having informal conversations
where I can come to workand say “hello, how are you?” and have a 5-10
minute quick chat about, for examplehow work’s getting on – a short meeting.
With my current interpreting arrangement, this is
not really possible.The reason is that if you want to use an interpreter,
it has to be for a minimum of 3 hours.For an informal 10-minute chat at a random time,
this is not possible.Here is where SignVideo comes in. You can book
an interpreter for only 5 or 10 minutes.Isn’t this useful?
Additionally, working with people who like to do
do a quick phone call with a brief enquiry -I can use TypeTalk, but TypeTalk can at times be
a problem – it works but can be… slow and not easy.SignVideo can be used instead to do phone calls
using two-way sign langauge.Wonderful service.
For Deaf professionals, it’s important to be able to
network with people, with colleagues at workplace.This SignVideo service can really help achieve this.
An exciting prospect!
I remember 2 or 3 years ago I met with Jeff and
I was amazed at the possibilities of this service.We were in Belgium and we
could easily connect to London to communicate with
people there through interpreters from London.Incredible!
In America this is highly thrieving and very
popular. In the United Kingdom, howeverit has been slow with legislation from
the government being unsuitable.Despite all this, SignVideo has been
doing remarkably well and is growing.I really hope SignVideo will continue this
growth and reach out to the rest of us.So if you are a Deaf professional in the
United Kingdom, please give it a try.You may find you like it and that it can really
enables and empowers you in your job!That’s it. Goodbye.
Wow, I love seeing different “sign languages” style. As I’m from America so I sign ASL. I’m happy to see that you provide subtitle for BSL like I do to my ASL vlogs too. It help us to grow and understand each other from all over the world. SignVideo sounds awesome and save time. Make the time more valuable than waste it.
Fairlady
SignVideo sounds like a really good thing – as you say, sometimes you don’t know in advance when you need an interpreter, or only need one for a few minutes. This is where something like SignVideo would come in very useful. Unfortunately it appears that they are currently only available in London and NW England (http://www.signvideo.co.uk/accesspoints.htm) but hopefully this will change in the future.
As a separate point, it’s interesting seeing you translate into English yourself. I’ve always done that in my head when communicating with you so it’s interesting to see how you would do the same translation
Hi Ben
I am moved by your comments about our service – it is always good to see that someone has grasped the concept of the service as people are often afraid that this will replace the face to face interpreters – basically it is an enhancement to the face to face interpreting services stepping in where the former is unable to meet the demand like emergency meetings, social networking within the office, making and receiving telephone calls in one’s own first language – Great!
Just wanted to clarify Gareth’s comments – the service is national – the map are those with fixed video access points – but for the deaf AtW customers we have people in Bristol, soon in Cambridge, the far South West, Shetland Islands and so on – so it is actually anywhere in the UK as we have been approved by the AtW National Delivery team.
If you want to find out more – fill in the boxes on http://www.signvideo.co.uk/contactus.htm and we will dispatch an information pack to anyone interested.
All the best
Jeff
Fantastic news – thanks for the extremely quick reply Jeff. Some clarification on your Web site would be a good thing to encourage as many people to start using it as possible.
I look forward to seeing the service evolve and in regular use.
Thank you