More than Words Can Say

More than Words Can Say Report on the evaluation of materials translated by the BAMER Outreach Project.

By Sue Lukes and Zafir Behlic December 2009

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Contents

1. Background ...........................................................................................3 2. Working with small BAMER groups.......................................................5 3. Translating: not a simple question........................................................8 4. How useful were the translations? .....................................................12 5. Other views.........................................................................................21 6. Conclusions and recommendations....................................................24 Acknowledgements ................................................................................26

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1. Background The London Voluntary Service Council is the “network of networks” for London and offers support and advice on employment issues via the PEACe service (Personnel, Employment, Advice and Conciliation). The service can be used by voluntary sector employers, development workers and advisors in London.

PEACe secured three year funding from the Big Lottery Fund to set up an outreach project to offer tailored intensive support to small Black Asian Minority Ethnic and Refugee (BAMER) organisations to ensure that they were developing good employment practice.

The BAMER project: • • • • •

provided 37 organisations with intensive consultancy support advised 224 groups accessing telephone and face‐to‐face advice trained 145 BAMER organisations on employment law issues translated a range of employment law resources into Somali, French, Arabic, Turkish and Polish. ensured that BAMER groups linked into the PEACe service.

The written resources centred on the publication of the Essential Employment Menu, which covers recruitment, disciplinary and grievance and dismissals as well as signposts to other resources. This was translated initially into Somali and French, and later into Arabic and Turkish. A second publication on employment rights, employment status and contracts called “Employing Your Staff” was translated into Polish.

An evaluation of the service reported in early 2009, concluding that:

“the PEACe BAMER Outreach project has an excellent record to date, well on its way to meet most of its target outputs and outcomes. This evaluation urges the project to build on its success to embed further good HR practice within small BAMER led organisations. Its model of operation – providing services to a group with special needs within a mainstream service – appears proven, and potentially replicable with other target audiences. “1

1

PEACe BAMER Outreach Project Evaluation Report January 2009, Dr Tanya Murphy

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It did, however, pose questions about the written materials:

“It would be helpful to assess the extent to which the project’s printed materials are being used. Are the Employment Menu copies sitting under stacks of paper or are they being referred to? One second tier advisor, an advisory group member, feared that perhaps without a full introduction to the contents, the guide could end up on the shelf.

Similarly, how helpful are the resources translated into community languages?

The project could benefit as it continues its translation programme to gather evidence about the extent to which the translated documents are helpful and necessary.”2

A small piece of work was duly commissioned, to seek answers to these questions, and this report is the result.

2

ibid

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2. Working with small BAMER groups Local infrastructure organisations (LIOs) such as voluntary service councils have a mixed track record on engaging with smaller BAMER organisations. One guide for working with refugee organisations researched the involvement of LIOs in various parts of the UK and found, for example

“‘Anybody can access our current outreach and capacity‐building programme – our doors are open to all. Refugees get included in our general BME work and that seems to work.’ This was the view of the local CVS. However, an RCO in the same area working to deliver advice, education and lobbying work had never heard of the CVS and did not know that they could access any support at all: ‘We’ve just tried to do it ourselves.’”3

Typically, some small community organisations may eventually get funding to employ staff, often on a part time or sessional basis, providing direct services such as supplementary schools, advice or cultural development. The organisations themselves usually start as unconstituted associations with charitable aims, and may then move to develop a more formal structure, with a management committee or trustees. The challenge is to retain the accountability to the community while developing services which require regulation, such as providing immigration advice or looking after children. A key to this is ensuring that trustees or management committee members continue to represent the community and its needs and aspirations. Often they may be people with wide ranging professional and managerial experience and their experience may not have been gained in the UK. Another issue for those recently arrived may be a limited level of English.

One of the stated aims of the BAMER project was to provide resources to enable second tier organisations to work better with BAMER groups. It kept them informed of all activities and resources via the second tier advisers network run by LVSC and various other networks, briefings etc. It also maintained contact with a range of refugee and migrant specialist organisations who function as development agencies for many BAMER groups.

At the time of the evaluation, the project had reported problems in engaging the second tier advisers. Even some of those in regular contact, it seemed, tended to use the project as a place to “park” the HR issues faced by small BAMER organisations with which they worked. At that point, the BAMER project was more frequently contacted directly by BAMER organisations than by

3 Working with refugee community organisations ‐ a guide for local infrastructure organisations By Ceri Hutton and Sue Lukes CES 2008 www.ces‐vol.org.uk

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second tier or development organisations. The project worker, however, was very proactive in publicising the work via newsletters, conferences and networking activities.

In the first two years of existence, the BAMER project appears to have had considerable success in engaging BAMER groups. The evaluation reported:

Direct intensive support for 49 BAMER organisations via its helpline with employment issues such as sickness absence, HR policies, recruitment processes, job descriptions and grievance procedures. Of these 49, 22 received face‐to‐face consultancy – an HR health check and support to deal with priorities, such as establishing HR policies and setting up appropriate job contracts. In addition, 78 members of BAMER organisations received employment training.4

This involved some quite intensive work, often using a “health check” model to interrogate what organisations were doing and their policies, procedures and governance in order to make specific recommendations to improve practice.

Because of the scope of this work, it has to involve both paid staff and trustees or management committee members, who have the ultimate legal responsibility for ensuring proper employment procedures and processes are in place. The latter were identified as a prime audience for the materials produced by the project.

The translated materials were a development of this work. The two guides, both written in plain English, differ in content: the Essential Employment Menu “covers key HR topics such as recruitment, disciplinary and grievance and dismissals. It also includes details of where to get further information”.

Employing Your Staff “covers all the key information needed for voluntary sector employers, including employment status , employment rights and employers' responsibilities, a basic model contract of employment, a contract for self‐employed staff, and a contract to use for casual workers.5”. Both documents are based on material produced for the wider PEACe service.

The selection of languages for translation was guided by: the spread of organisations in touch with the project, knowledge of significant populations in London at the time, knowledge of recently arrived communities and knowledge of different communities’ access to English. Based on those criteria, it was

4

PEACe BAMER Outreach Project Evaluation Report January 2009, Dr Tanya Murphy

5

From the LVSC website 6

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decided to translate the Essential Employment Menu into Somali, French, Arabic and Turkish. Later, Employing Your Staff was translated into Polish. These were distributed to the organisations on the PEACe database, both frontline BAMER groups and second tier and development organisations.

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3. Translating: not a simple question What was not discussed in the evaluation of the project was the current debate in the UK about the value of translating materials. This has become a sharply contested area recently. The BBC, for example, reported in December 2006: “It is a lot of money in anyone's language. The cost of translating and interpreting for UK residents who don't speak English is rising sharply. Our research has identified expenditure of at least £100m in the past year, but the true figure is likely to be much more. Local councils spend at least £25m; the police £21m; the courts system spends more than £10m without accounting for the cost of legal aid; and the NHS ‐ a conservative estimate is £55m6.”

This report (which made no distinction between interpreting and translation) formed part of a public debate stimulated in part by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, which reported in 2007, but issued interim findings earlier, along with various statements by its Chair, which questioned the value of some of the translations that local authorities, in particular, had commissioned.

“Although such translation may be well intentioned and an important step towards learning English, it might actually be working against wider goals of integration and cohesion.”

Two examples from the Daily Mail were cited “anecdotally” in support of this suggestion, along with comments about “taxpayers footing the bill”.7 The Commission came to a more nuanced view, highlighting “both the importance of translation in some areas, but also the need to link it with wider English language provision, and ESOL support in particular.” They expressed concern that, while some translations were proactive, in that the need for them had been assessed and questioned, and their effectiveness evaluated, some were reactive, and had not been produced with sufficient thought as to the use, audience or effect. They recommended that the Department for Communities and Local Government be asked to produce guidance for local authorities to avoid this in future. It should be noted that, by this stage, the Commission had made a clear distinction between translation of written materials and the provision of face to face interpreting.

The guidance was produced at the end of 2007. It recommended “thinking twice” about translating any materials but noted:

6

BBC website 12th December 2006 accessed 7th December 2009 The Practical Impacts of Translation: Findings and Recommendations COI Diversity published by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion.

7

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"Opinion is divided as to whether translation is a barrier to integration, or whether it is a stepping stone to better language skills. Our position is that it depends on the individual: where migrants from the past are still relying on community languages, then translations from English are likely to extend their reliance on their mother tongue; where new migrants do not speak English then clearly they need initial information in appropriate languages. Local authorities will judge what is best – but our working assumption is that heading for the translators should not be an automatic first step in all cases."8

The core recommendation was to reduce translation except where it builds cohesion and/or integration. Even where translation is necessary, such as in welcome packs for new migrants, they recommend:

"Translate in a targeted way that encourages learning of English. As our guidance translation makes clear, we believe translation needs to be targeted and evidence based; and provide a stepping stone to learning English. So we would expect areas to find out whether new migrants can speak English, only translate where they cannot and then make information packs bilingual or be clear about how people can learn English. Cornwall have been through this process and decided to produce their information pack just in English and three other languages."9

Also a focus of concern is the potential for waste in translating, and the need for all agencies to cooperate in producing translations of key resources such as welcome packs.

Others, however, have taken a much more positive view of the uses of translated materials. Age Concern England reviewed practices in many projects across the country and concluded that:

“Consideration should be given at an early stage to communicating effectively with diverse communities as part of a wider communication strategy that reflects the organisation's commitment to valuing diversity and to being inclusive. Evidence has shown that providing some brief translated material (e.g. bi‐lingual leaflets) in community languages has been very useful to those

8

Guidance for Local Authorities on Translation of Publications DCLG 2007

9 Communicating important information to new local residents DCLG 2008

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communities and the people who work with them. Other means of communicating information should also be considered at an early stage (e.g. audio and video cassettes or word of mouth).”10

On a more theoretical plane, translation is sometimes the object of anthropological or ethnographic enquiry, and now has its own field of Translation Studies. Some of this, in particular the references to knowledge transfer being, in part, cultural transfer11, are actually about the interpreting process. The anthropological take on the importance of translation is illustrated

by Moore et al

Translation thus involves power relations in terms of the control of knowledge and symbols, and interpretation in both the literal and figurative senses, making it a site of status and identity negotiation.12

Translation studies also tackle the issue of power directly:

General questions of ideology in translation are constantly tied up with the relative power of different languages (Greek and Latin in Classical times, English today) and of the participants, which has an important effect on what is translated and how translation takes place. The consequences of such imbalances of power and the way they convey and frame ideology have attracted growing interest within translation studies in the first decade of the twenty‐first century,13

Returning to the empirical level, the provision of translated material is often a simple sign that an organisation takes the needs of a linguistic community seriously. The preponderance of English on a world scale, its origin in a small island, and a certain cultural suspicion of any facility in other modern languages can sometimes override the fact that it is simple good manners to communicate as effectively as possible. Providing translated materials gives evidence of

10 11

Communicating with Diverse Audiences Age Concern England 2006

Holden, N Cross‐Cultural Management: a knowledge management perspective cited in Moore, Lowe and Hwang Language, Power and Integration: The Translator as Gatekeeper in the Korean Business Community in London (UK)

12

Language, Power and Integration: The Translator as Gatekeeper in the Korean Business Community in London (UK) Fiona Moore Sid Lowe and Ki Soon Hwang RHUL London 13 The study of ideology in translation studies Jeremy Munday University of Leeds lecture abstract

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goodwill and the intention to make that effort. It also tells minority linguistic communities that their own language abilities are appreciated and that the new languages they bring to the UK may be an asset not an encumbrance.

Language, however, also provides power within linguistic minorities14. Often those who speak English are able to use this to get work, raise their status or achieve positions of authority within community organisations. The use of children as interpreters is often commented on as undesirable precisely because it gives them inappropriate power within families. On the other hand, the ‘power’ of language puts a burden on children since they inevitably end up dealing with ‘adult’ matters not suitable for their age.

Providing translated materials can “even out” power imbalances within groups, enabling those who do not have as much English to understand more about their roles and responsibilities and participate in decision‐making. These imbalances often occur along gender divides, and also between older and younger people, with older people and women less likely to be able to communicate well in English. Reducing their disadvantage must form part of any equalities based practice.

Lastly, the provision of translated materials may reduce the use of other services, as people find it easier or better to look things up rather than telephone to seek advice. On the other hand, second tier advisers often report that many people prefer to check information and discuss it with a trusted individual. The provision of written material also does not deal with a different power imbalance, that between the literate and illiterate. This issue is recognised by the DCLG in their checklist

“Are you confident that people across all communities will have the literacy skills to understand this document?

Should it first be simplified into a plain English version?

Would a short summary do with signposting to further information? – or could it be translated on request rather than proactively?”15

14

As noted by Moore et al in their study of Korean translation in south London cited above Guidance for Local Authorities on Translation of Publications DCLG 2007

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4. How useful were the translations?

We were commissioned to find out how useful the translations LVSC produced were for organisations and especially for their trustees, by asking a range of organisations:

5 Somali , 3 Turkish, 3 Arabic‐speaking, 3 French‐speaking, 3 Polish, and 3 Chinese and 3 Spanish (we have not as yet produced any translated materials for the last two) organisations with a specific contact person for us to interview in‐depth plus 5 refugee/migrant specific second‐tier organisations and 7 mainstream ones16.

These organisations were identified as being on the PEACe database, and already in contact with the project. Somali and French speaking organisations had received the printed versions of the relevant materials some time ago, and Polish, Arabic and Turkish speaking organisations were sent pdfs just before we contacted them. All second tier advisers in contact with the project also received all translated versions of the materials and were notified of projected publication dates in advance. They were also contacted and asked to respond to the survey. In addition, a notice about the survey was sent to the Second Tier Advisers Network with a request that members respond to the web based survey. Community organisations were contacted individually and specifically asked to respond as project users.

In the charts below we have grouped all the second and first tier organisations: those described as first tier/community include those who identified themselves as community or voluntary organisations, the second tier includes those who described themselves as refugee or migrant agencies.

16

From the project brief

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Figure 1. Breakdown of those who responded by frontline vs second tier.

90 80 10

70 60

Responded

50

Contacted

40 68

30 20

10

10

13

0

Community Organisations

Second‐tier agencies

Potential respondents were offered a choice of methods: a web based survey, a telephone call or an email response. All second‐tier and majority of frontline community organisations opted for online survey. Some responses were followed up with further telephone calls, and finally three respondents did more detailed interview.

Each organisation was contacted at least three times: twice by email and once by phone. The response rate was not terrific, a total of 22 were eventually secured (some did not provide full responses), and there was no correlation between those who had received the materials and those who responded: in fact those who had had no translations done at all (Spanish speakers) proved more willing to engage, although this may be influenced by the fact that both the project worker and one of our team have a long history of work with this community.

Figure 2. Breakdown of frontline community organisations by languages Spanish, 3, 30% Turkish, 1, 10% Chinese, 2, 20%

Somali, 1, 10%

Francophone, 1, 10%

Polish, 2, 20%

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Respondents were a mix of managers and workers, although it was apparent from the telephone interviews later that one at least was actually a trustee as well. As we expected, the great majority of those responding from community organisations were managers (in practice many are often sole workers) and the great majority of those from second tier agencies were workers.

Figure 3. Breakdown of respondents by role or job 10 9 8

1

7

Community orgs

6

Second‐tier agencies

5

8

4

7

3 2

0

1

2

1

0

0

Manager

Worker

Volunteer

Trustee

Given that most had been contacted because of their involvement with the project, the results of our questions about receipt and use of the employment materials were surprising.

Figure 4. Which publications had respondents received?

12 10

Second‐Tier orgs Community orgs

3

8 6 4

7

7

2 0

0 1 Employing Your Staff ‐ Polish

0 3

0

1 0

Essential Employment Menu – Somali and French

Essential Employment Menu – Turkish and Arabic

None received

Not recorded

All those that had received the essential employment menu in all four languages were second tier agencies. Most of those that had received the materials had asked for them. Since the materials had been sent out to relevant frontline or

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community organisations automatically, again this raises concerns that receiving the materials has not necessarily increased engagement or knowledge unless there was further work done with the organisation concerned.

Figure 5. How had the publications been used?

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Community orgs.

Second Tier orgs.

4 3

0

1 3

6

3

2

As a basis for As a tool for developing training new policy and trustees, practice members or volunteers

3

2

4

3

1 As a tool in managing staff

As a tool in Read them to managing the increase their organisation knowledge and awareness

Other use

2 not recorded

Since few of the frontline/community organisations believed they had received the publications, the responses here from them are actually mostly about their use of the English language publications. There are no significant differences here in how the different types of organisations had used the publications. Most had used them in at least two different ways.

Of those who had received the translated materials, however, the majority found them either useful or essential in their work (three useful and two essential out of seven respondents). People who had not received the materials also told us that they found them useful or essential, however, a total of four useful and one essential.

Asked to identify which aspects were most useful, people identified various aspects:

Functionality • They do represent as clear and concise an explanation of HR issues for small organisations as you will get.

• Some of the trustees I worked with did not speak fluent English and reading about Employment in Somali meant they were able to understand the concepts/legalities etc • Useful for increasing knowledge and awareness, managing staff etc.

• Trustees can use it as a tool in managing staff and the organisation.

• Important information on recruitment, probation, redundancy & contracts would be most useful for our trustees ‐ however probably as a dip‐in guide for as and when needed. The most detailed information is

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more important for the managers / people carrying out the day‐to‐day work and instructions of the trustees; our trustees are mostly interested in receiving a general guide or dos and don’ts.

• An overview of Employment Rights. An overview of Employers liabilities.

Good use of language • Clearly written, available in translation, can be shared with all members of the MC and staff • Accessibility and simplicity of language • Easy way written down; understandable by all staff, volunteers and potential workers

Use in combination with other resources/work • Link in to LVSCs other work notably PEACe • Useful to have training material in other languages • As with all good resource material, it is of most benefit when it is given to groups at the point when they are motivated to make use of it. This could be when keen new trustees are being inducted, or when a problem arises that has to be dealt with, or a funder is insisting that a particular policy is developed.

• As a second tier advisor it is very useful to be able to give groups this type of targeted material at the relevant time. However, 2nd tier workers are not always in the right place at the right time to give out the information.

We asked what they found least useful and most simply did not respond. Those that did identified: • long (but then that is necessary I just think some organisations don’t open them, perhaps a summary sheet on card that could be stuck on the wall in their office...)

• a bit too long document • As with any resource material it does get out of date.

• Small organisations, whether requiring translated material or not, often need a lot of one‐to‐one support to put increased knowledge from such materials into practice.

Just over half the respondents said they needed other materials in translation as well.

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Figure 6. Need for further materials to be translated 10 8 6

Yes

No

5 2

4 2

4

4

Second Tier orgs.

Community orgs.

0

Asked to identify potential topics for more translated materials, they offered: • health and safety (twice) • written statements • recruitment policy • Chinese version for employment • redundancy and ending contracts • MC roles • safeguarding • disciplinary and grievance procedures with guidance notes and another simply disciplinary • contracts and different types of employment • MC fundraising strategy • supervision and appraisal with guidance notes • managing staff

In an interview, one also suggested that it would be very useful to have the voluntary sector compact translated so that BAMER organisations could become more aware of it and use it. Safeguarding, which has been the subject of a lot of concern recently, was particularly highlighted as an area of need, given the range of services community organisations offer.

Reasons for these choices included:

I know that many supplementary schools find it enormously difficult to share the burden of responsibility for the safe and good running of their schools with other members of the MC and the community, and part of the reason for that is the lack of availability of clear, concise, practical guidelines in these different areas.

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Written statements and discipline and grievance procedures are legal requirements and all employers need to have some guidance in recognising a discipline and grievance situation and taking some action to deal with it. The current Essential Employment Menu publication explains this, but doesn’t include these example polices and procedures.

Although not a legal requirement, using supervisions and appraisals are good at preventing problems getting out of hand.

Redundancy has been a key result of the recession; many funding contracts will be ending and not being renewed for similar reasons. As fixed term contracts still require giving notice / redundancy its important to understand this process.

We discovered there was a lot of uncertainty /ignorance around types of contract when reviewing ours, especially with casual workers, part‐timers and consultants. Fixed term contracts (given their name) are difficult to understand

Given the wide mix of organisations, it is not surprising that when asked to suggest other languages for future materials, the responses ranged widely:

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Figure 7. Priority languages suggested 5

6

4

5

3

4

3 2

3

2

2 1

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

ia Ti gr yn

lis h Po

Ar ab ic Tu rk i sh Ku Fr rd en ish ch la

ng ua ge Po s rtu gu es e Am ha ric Be ng ali Ch in es e En gl ish

ali m So

Sp

an ish

0

It should be noted, however, that most languages proposed by more than one respondent were proposed by a mix of second tier and frontline agencies.

Asked about how they preferred to receive their materials, there was a slight preference for printed formats.

Figure 8. Preferred format for translated materials

12

Community orgs.

10

Second Tier orgs.

8 6

2

7

5

4

2

4 4

4

4

0 Internet as Word Internet as PDF or rtf format

Printed copy

0 1 Braille document

4 not recorded

Most respondents did not produce other materials in translation themselves.

One issued family learning materials and another said they produced publicity materials. Languages offered were Bengali, Arabic, Gujerati, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Only one of these told us about the selection criteria used: the number of community organisations in existence.

Only four organisations do anything else to help trustees with legal responsibilities: • We send out a monthly e‐bulletin …. with updates on relevant legislation, we are in partnership with NCVO who offer free membership of NCVO when …..(organisations join us) (which is also free). We provide updated

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• • •

templates and information relating to quality assurance and good governance on our website for member organisations.

Give 1‐2‐1 advice and tailor made training. ensuring overall understanding of governance issues A number of jobs at (organisation) with a strong outreach element to small BAMER groups, which involves meeting with workers and/or trustees, discussing needs, and then organising one to one support, or training on that particular issue. (often focussing on a particular subject , e.g. “safeguarding children”).

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5. Other views We followed up three responses from people who had been identified by staff as having been particularly engaged with the project. All were women working with communities for whom materials had been translated. Although each works with an organisation we had identified as “front line”, in fact they all regarded themselves as having a development role as well. One promotes the role of women within their communities, another runs a network of Saturday schools and the other had moved her organisation from being a mother and children’s project to being effectively a development agency for the community in the borough, taking on a name that meant “unifier”.

One had worked with the BAMER Outreach project before. Another had been trained on the project and proof read one of the translations as well as using the project:

“Stefanie was really helpful. We were confused about policies and she helped us a lot. We will update our policies soon and she set up the contracts for us and amended and emailed them to us. It was really useful and helpful. Now we know where to go, it is great to have an HR service there.”

Only one of the three had seen the translated materials yet, and they had just arrived. “They will be really useful as some did not know about the law in English: it makes it easier”. She hoped to distribute it to the network of organisations she works with, but emphasised that more needed to be done;

“We wanted to have a meeting with Stefanie and have an arrangement to discuss how to make it more useful, maybe via a meeting and mention in other meetings. Also to get in touch with those who are interested and give it to them.”

One hoped to use the materials (although they had been available for some time).

“We use to inform the community. If it is based on an organisational level that is fine but for (our) people even if you produce guidelines they are difficult to follow. My organisation had just a basic contract when I became a trustee. It was the only one available. As trustees we said we need to develop policies but only a few people understand. It is not the material: what they need is training

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not just guidelines, you need to give them information during training, they will not read unless in training. The materials are very useful with workshops.

Another agreed

“It is difficult for management committee members to use unless you have a worker guiding them to use it. I …. Took it with me to MC members and depending on the issue showed them, how to use it. It needs to be introduced

by CVS workers or a worker like Stefanie to work with MC to show them how to use…half a day training….. needs personal contact and guidance.

Or train the paid workers of organisations, the managers, to guide their MC members to use the materials. “

We discussed what they knew about trustees own knowledge of employment and their ability to use available materials in English.

One worker was sure her trustees would have no problems: her management committee all worked in the statutory, health or voluntary sectors and so were aware of their responsibilities as employers. She was, however, keen to develop user involvement and hoped to use the materials with the user group she had developed, who had few language skills.

A second interviewee was concerned that her trustees may “struggle” with their roles and responsibilities, and believed that the published materials would make things easier for them, and “staff will be safer and in a better position because people really are not aware of the law.” Only one trustee felt confident in English, the other four spoke only their mother tongue.

The third described her ten trustees as a mixed group of people

“some work for local organisations, one for (a national NGO), one is a social worker, another a community worker, one is a housewife. Two trustees also speak English and we communicate in English and (mother tongue) in meetings.”

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Language, however, is not the only problem.

“The majority of our community don’t write or read in (mother tongue). Some are illiterate, especially the first generation. Maybe the majority. There is a lady doctor in economics fluent in (a European language) and (mother tongue).

It is a real mix. They do understand the community and are part of it and a little help will encourage them. Maybe it is better to produce DVDs or recordings.”

Trustees are not a homogenous group. Workers mentioned several people with high level qualifications, and often a preponderance of women. Language, however, often determined access to decision‐making and “older people and women are less likely to speak English”. Language itself was not a single issue either: minority languages within communities complicated the picture as well as literacy. Even those who spoke and wrote English sometimes found technical terms and jargon difficult and welcomed the availability of written material that explained them.

All three organisations were part of wider networks: a local development trust, the LVSC, the Evelyn Oldfield Unit (a specialist unit working with refugee community organisations), the local CVS, a migrant resource centre.

We discussed the possibility of providing web based resources. All three were in favour and used the web a lot for reference and research. “View any time and not stuck in a file. Much easier.” Was one comment. All three, however emphasised the need for human contact and engagement as a prerequisite to getting anything used effectively.

“It needs a person”, we were told. Verbal communication was as important as writing, whatever the medium. One pointed out that now we have a manual that includes all the areas to be covered in English, it is possible to identify which organisation needs what and produce according to need.

“But it depends on the second tier: some are proactive and some want everything done first before they provide solutions.”

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6. Conclusions and recommendations We were asked to find out about how useful the translated materials were, how they were being used, and what languages might be added in future.

What is clear is that the translated materials have provided a demonstration of the good faith of the BAMER project, along with the energetic approach of its staff. Generally, frontline agencies approved of the idea of having material available in the mother tongue. In the context of ensuring that trustees knew about their legal responsibilities the materials had the potential to help with this, and their availability was more significant for some trustees who were less likely to speak English, such as the first generation, older people and women.

For some communities, however, precisely these groups of people actually benefited less from written communication because of lower levels of literacy: in fact they would find it easier to use recording or film in the relevant language.

It is the case, however, that many of the agencies for whom this material was targeted did not respond to the survey, and that those that did generally told us about use of the material in context, i.e. alongside other initiatives to train or support trustees. The translations work well when used by a trusted person as part of an intervention. By themselves, they do indeed sit on shelves. Some users suggested that shorter texts might be more effective, and several believed the current texts too long to be accessible for some users. But many told us that what they valued most was the work that was done and the support for that work represented by the existence of the translated materials. The problem is, however, that second tier workers are often not resourced or trained to deal with HR issues.

There was wide awareness and approval of the basic texts in English, but absolutely no consensus on any languages that could usefully be added to the repertoire or on any method that could be used to identify them. There was, however, concern that translated materials might date quite quickly. There was also the fact that some potential end users might not be sufficiently literate in their mother tongue to use written materials well, and this points to a need for oral or visual presentations of the information. Again, this is not feasible for long texts.

Finally, there were some requests for new material to be added to the stock available, particularly on health and safety and on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults.

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There are thus some simple recommendations to make.

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A review of the materials on health and safety and safeguarding on the PEACe website with a view to ensuring they are accessible and known to BAMER organisations

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The updating of the plain English materials on a regular basis

We would, however, make a specific and detailed set of recommendations about the development of the BAMER project and PEACe’s work with BAMER groups on translated materials.

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Securing continuing funding for outreach work to BAMER community groups by PEACe.

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A focus by PEACe on equipping and encouraging all relevant second tier workers to engage successfully with BAMER groups on the issues of good employment practices

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The establishment of a translation budget to be used for all items currently on the website.

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This to include the production of guidelines on how to ask for and offer translations of short pieces of information into relevant languages and formats

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Translations to be produced “on demand” in response to requests from second tier advisers, with selection simply being determined by the strength of demand from advisers

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Translations to be on relevant topics and no longer than four sides of A4.

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“translations” to be available as sound recordings and short podcasts where needed

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The establishment of a new section of the website to “hold” translated materials

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Publicity for this at all levels, and the consideration of rolling this out as a national service in partnership with other relevant organisations

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Acknowledgements Thank you to Stefanie Borkum and Rahel Geffen for their help in commissioning, supporting and commenting on this report. Our thanks also to the organisations who responded to our surveys or were interviewed for this work.

AdviceUK Azza Supplementary School Chinese Information and Advice Centre Chinese Mental Health Association ContinYou, The National resource Centre for Supplementary Education East European Advice Centre IMECE ‐ Turkish Speaking Group Islington Voluntary Action Centre Latin American Association Latin American Disabled People's Project Latin American Women's Rights Service MIDAYE Somali Development Network Migrant & Refugee Communities Forum Migrant Organisations' Development Agency (MODA) PEEC Family Centre Refugees into Effective Partnership REAP Southwark Action for Voluntary Organisations Voluntary Action Camden Wandsworth Voluntary Sector Development Agency Womens Resource Centre

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