Richland County is taking the lead in addressing a critical shortage of legal sign language interpreters in the state’s court system. Through a discretionary fund grant, the county will help 25 interpreters work toward nationally recognized legal certification.

The county awarded a $12,995 grant to The Walker Foundation, the fundraising arm of the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind (SCSDB). SCSDB’s director of interpreting services, Kathy Stoehr, will serve as the project director for the grant. In her position with SCSDB, Stoehr is responsible for providing sign language interpreters to every county in the state.

There are approximately 50 nationally certified interpreters in South Carolina, but only one of the 50 currently holds the national certification for legal interpreting. Due to the limited number of qualified legal interpreters in the Midlands area, SCSDB could accommodate only one–third of the requests for interpreters in Richland County court systems in 2009. “Interpreters have been assigned to Richland County court cases from as far away as Charleston, Spartanburg, and Greenville,” said Stoehr.

Richland County’s program will serve as the prototype for other South Carolina counties that might benefit from training in the legal setting. Carla M. Mathers, Esq., an educator and Washington, D.C. attorney, who is also a nationally–certified interpreter for the deaf, will provide four days of training in Columbia. The training will enable participants to increase their skill level in serving the deaf population of Richland County. The long term goal of the project is to enable interpreters to obtain legal interpreting certification from the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf.

The project will run Aug. 1 through June 1, 2011. Individuals who are interested in participating should contact Stoehr at (864) 577-7563 or email her at kstoehr@scsdb.org.