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The House Professional Registration and Licensing
Committee will hold a public hearing for House Bill 1195 tomorrow
(Tuesday) February 10th at 12:00 noon in House Hearing Room #4 in
the Capitol Building in Jefferson City. HB 1195 is the omnibus bill
that modifies many of the laws governing the activities of the
Division of Professional Registration. Three parts of that bill
concern sign language interpreters, and MCDHH will testify in
support of those provisions.
The addition of subsection 209.321(6) necessarily clarifies a matter
that has been somewhat fuzzy and in dispute ever since the
interpreter certification and licensure law was passed nearly a
decade ago. In particular, this new subsection makes it clear that
students in interpreter training programs do not fall under the
licensing law so long as they are engaged in interpreting activities
that are a part of a supervised course of study in their ITP. This
language allows students to participate in critical skill
development activities as a part of their educational program, thus
ensuring the completeness of the education provided to students by
interpreter training programs.
The addition of subsection 209.321(7) would allow qualified
interpreters to come into Missouri for the purpose of providing
interpreting services at temporary events, such as conventions,
conferences, and professional meetings. This provision would
facilitate bringing deafness related conferences to Missouri, thus
bringing additional revenues into the state, as well as providing
opportunities for Missourians with hearing loss to attend national
conferences without the expense of traveling to distant parts of our
country -- in essence providing additional educational and training
opportunities for deaf and hard of hearing Missourians.
The additional language in subsection 209.323(2) would ensure that
interpreters take part in continuing education activities in order
to keep their certification current, given that evidence of current
certification would become essential for license renewal. This
provision would require interpreters to engage in learning
activities to maintain and improve their skills so long as they
continued to work as a professional interpreter, and that would
provide ongoing benefits to deaf consumers in Missouri.
Advocates who would like to support this bill are encouraged to
contact the sponsor of the bill and chair of the House Professional
Registration and Licensing Committee, Representative Robert Behnen,
and inform him that you would like to testify in support of the bill
at the committee hearing. And if you cannot attend the committee
hearing, but would still like to show your support for this bill,
you can do so by contacting Representative Behnen and informing him
that you "fully support the provisions of HB 1195 that pertain to
sign language interpreters." Representative Behnen can be contacted
by phoning (573) 751-0224, faxing to (573) 526-9841, sending e-mail
to Robert.Behnen@house.mo.gov, or sending surface mail addressed as
follows:
Representative Robert Behnen
State Capitol Building, Room
Jefferson City, MO 65101
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