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This priority is about ensuring there is a workforce to support the acquisition and use of NZSL for Deaf people and NZSL users. It also involves strengthening the overall Deaf and NZSL workforce.
Energising and integrating NZSL means ensuring more people, particularly children, have opportunities to learn NZSL. It is also about enabling NZSL users to be able to use NZSL more broadly within the wider community, promoting participation and overall social well-being. This includes recognising NZSL as a strength, not a barrier.
To support the wider energising and integration of NZSL, the Deaf and NZSL workforce also needs to grow. This includes Deaf tutors and teachers, as well a NZSL interpreters, including trilingual and tactile interpreters. While the primary focus for trilingual interpreters is for interpreters who can confidently interpret in te reo Māori settings), it is recognised there is also a need to support the growth of interpreters who can confidently interpret in a range of cultural and linguistic settings, including Pacific settings.
The interpreter needs of NZSL communities need to be considered, while the interpreter system (such as interpreter standards) also needs to be fit for purpose. The considerations of the support required for Deaf employees and NZSL users and their employee rights is also important here, including (but not limited to) reasonable accommodations and funding for interpreter support.
People should not have to rely on family members (especially children) or friends to interpret for them at medical appointments or key social and cultural occasions. Nor should they have to have appointments postponed due to interpreter availability.
Actions proposed for this priority area
- Identify capacity and capability gaps (including sectors and geographical) in the Deaf and NZSL workforce (such as Deaf / Turi Māori teachers and tutors, and NZSL interpreters and translators)
- Develop approaches to address those gaps (such as improving Deaf teacher pathways, building pathways for trilingual and tactile interpreters and NZSL interpreters for other cultural groups, and improving the interpreter funding model)
- Develop national standards for interpretation / NZSL interpreters
- Develop learning pathways for the public to learn NZSL (including opportunities for hearing children to learn NZSL)