Time to Heal: Understanding how horizontal violence impacts sign language interpreters’ occupational health and culture

Presented By: Sarah Comerford
Date/Time: Fri. March 28, 2025/ 5-7pm MT
RID CEUs: 0.2 PS
Presentation Language: ASL

Workshop Description:

 

Horizontal violence has long impacted the interpreting field, as well as many other service professions. Negative interactions between interpreters during the interpreting encounter and in community settings cause emotional and mental strain, which in turn can impact the interpreter’s performance and individual well-being. In this workshop we will discuss why the interpreting field provides optimal conditions for horizontal violence to thrive and how this impacts our professional community’s occupational health and culture.

Workshop Objectives:

As a result of attending this workshop, participants will be able to:

  • Describe the essential components of horizontal violence including associated behaviors, impacts to community, and underlying systemic precursors.
  • Differentiate between the interpersonal, generational, and sociocultural factors which contribute to occupational cultures of horizontal violence developing in service professions.
  • Utilizing Demand-Control Schema, assess how behaviors associated with horizontal violence contribute to the environmental, interpersonal, paralinguistic, and intrapersonal demands present before, after, and during the interpreting encounter.

    Presenter Bio:

    Sarah Comerford: Born and raised in the Bay Area of California, Sarah Comerford’s 15-year interpreting career began when they attended a two-year interpreter training program in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi and subsequently obtained a bachelor's degree in Cognitive Linguistics from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. They continued their education with a Master's in Interpreting Studies from Western Oregon University where they studied ASL interpreters’ professional communities of practice as situated within contemporary systems of power and oppression. They presently reside in Oregon.