2. In your opinion, what key policy changes or reforms could enhance the protection of deaf individuals’ rights within the legal system, based on your findings so far?

I discussed this at a recent talk for the British Deaf Association which you can watch here: https://vimeo.com/812747530 (note, this is in BSL but English captions are provided from the BSL to English translation).  I talk about what we could have now that we have a BSL Act in the UK.  This includes themes such as sign language rights, the preservation of our culture and linguistic identity, reforms to education and lifelong learning, improved access to employment and services, and equal participation in public life.

I also talked about this in terms of the precepts of equality, i.e. formal, substantive and transformative equality.  It is clear from my PhD research that what we need more of for deaf people is transformative equality, so any enhancement in the protection of deaf individuals’ rights needs to be transformative and go some way to transform society’s attitudes towards deaf people.

References

British Deaf Association. (2023). Taking BSL Forward: British Deaf Association’s 10-Year Strategic Vision 2022-2032. https://bda.org.uk/strategic-vision/

1. Deaf people identify themselves as a distinct cultural entity, rather than perceiving themselves as part of the disabled community or a linguistic minority, but it is true that many laws now prioritize disability rights and language minority rights, rather than establishing a brand new law specifically for the deaf community. Do you reckon that there are any prevailing legislations related to disability or language minority in your country that can considerably advantage the deaf community at most in the present day? Additionally, I am curious to know if the deaf community is also satisfied with the current arrangement.

Yes, I think so.  We only have to look at the example of Welsh and Gaelic in Wales and Scotland respectively.

I have been involved in a research project with Rachel O’Neill at the University of Edinburgh that compares the approaches to Welsh and Gaelic with that of BSL (Wilks & O’Neill, 2022).  The case of Wales (where I live) is particularly striking because the devolved legislature has imposed a bilingual language policy in Wales, and Welsh and English are seen as equal languages.  All children in schools have to learn Welsh, and there is also Welsh-medium provision available.  The situation in Scotland is a little different: Gaelic and English don’t have equal status, and learning Gaelic in schools is optional, although parents can decide to send their children to Gaelic-medium schools.

So, at least with Welsh, there is a precedent already, which we can emulate in some shape or form for BSL.

Introducing a brand-new law specifically for deaf people is, quite frankly, never going to happen.  We need to work with what we’ve got, i.e. Deaf-disabled and language-minority rights.

Deaf people are not satisfied with the current arrangement.  The best illustration of that is in the British Deaf Association’s new 10-year strategy (2023), which aims to build a #BSL2032 movement to ‘bring about social change to dismantle the barriers.’

References

Wilks, R., & O’Neill, R. (2022). Deaf Education in Scotland and Wales: Attitudes to British Sign Language in deaf education compared to Gaelic and Welsh. https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/deafeducation/wp-content/uploads/sites/5764/2022/10/2-FINAL-REPORT.pdf

2. When mentioning one of the methods of Deaf Legal Theory – oppression, you mentioned that the law might grant deaf people new rights, or conversely, they may face increased discrimination, potential loss of rights, or having their rights ignored, or alternatively, the status quo may be maintained. Could you please provide some specific exaples to clarify this further?

Two examples immediately spring to mind:

• The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) was amalgamated with other anti-discrimination legislation in the UK to form the Equality Act 2010.  There were some improvements in the legislation for disabled individuals, such as the introduction of indirect discrimination (wasn’t available under the DDA) and disability-related discrimination was replaced by discrimination arising from disability to counter the negative impact of the Malcolm v London Borough of Lewisham case which rendered disability-related discrimination all but useless.  However, the definition of disability and reasonable adjustment provisions were not amended at all, and so the status quo for deaf people continued.
• The BSL Act 2022 came into force in April 2022 and recognises BSL as a language of Great Britain and imposes duties on Government departments to improve their communications with deaf people.  It does not give deaf people any new rights, directing them to the EqA instead.  This too, therefore, maintains the status quo.

I would imagine that examples where rights are lost will be few and far between, but you could argue that if a government decides to change a disability benefits regime which means that a large number of deaf people lose their disability benefits, that would be considered a ‘loss of rights’ and therefore oppression.

You may also be aware of the UK’s #WhereIsTheInterpreter campaign where the Deaf community and their allies launched a campaign against the Government during the peak of the Covid pandemic for the lack of on-platform sign language interpreters during Covid briefings by the Prime Minister and other Government ministers.  The Prime Minister’s office simply refused to provide an on-platform interpreter without any real justification. While this is not strictly law, it is still public policy and this is therefore an example of oppression.

1. It seems that promoting equal access to justice and addressing the unique challenges encountered by deaf individuals within the legal system should be achieved through the recognition of sign language as a valid language, the understanding and respect for deaf culture, and the provision of inclusive education and training. If we want to help the deaf seek justice, it is important to prioritize and value their language, which is sign language. However, it is unfortunate that there are many countries or districts that do not recognize the importance of sign language. Do you believe it is important to legally recognize sign language as a language before taking any action? Wouldn’t it be challenging for the deaf to access their rights if legislation related to sign language is not established from the beginning?

This is a good question: do we need to have sign language recognition before we can even think about establishing (new) rights for deaf people?  The jury is out on that one.  The impact of sign language recognition hasn’t yet been documented in full.  It is also not clear whether there is a marked difference in impact depending on whether sign language law is implicit or explicit recognition (see Meulder & Murray, 2017).

Having said that, there is one country where there has been a clear impact: Brazil. Brazil’s recognition of Libras and the inclusion of Libras in deaf education has seen a rise in the number of deaf people with undergraduate degrees, Masters and PhDs.  However, whether that is because of sign language recognition or because of the right to a bilingual education is a blurry line that needs to be cleared.  In any case, one could argue that the right to a bilingual education only came about as a result of sign language recognition.

Another question is whether deaf people need both Deaf-disabled and language-minority rights in order to have full rights as human beings.  Given the way society is structured and attitudes towards deaf people generally, and also the different groups of deaf people, i.e. deaf, Deaf, deafened, hard of hearing, Deafblind, deafblind, etc., we are probably going to need both types of rights to exist for the foreseeable future.

In short, more research is needed in this area, and this is a particular passion of mine so watch this space!

References

Meulder, M. D., & Murray, J. J. (2017). Buttering their bread on both sides? Language Problems and Language Planning, 41(2), 136–158. https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.41.2.04dem

1. A lot of my hearing friends and acquaintances who are not familiar with sign languages, Deaf Culture, and of course sign linguistics would often assume that sign languages are ‘codes’ ‘created’ based on spoken languages and that they are not ‘independent’ enough when they are for instance, borrowing mouthings from speech. The notion of ‘sign languages are independent from speech’ does not seem convincing to them even when I explained how sign languages follow their own grammatical rules, and how they have their own phonological parameters, etc.. How would you explain the independence and dependence of sign language(s)? And how would you explain the relationship between speech and sign language, say, Dutch and Dutch Sign Language?

Thank you for the relevant question: indeed it can be hard for newcomers to deaf communication to see the difference between signed and spoken language if signing is always richly supplemented by elements of the spoken language. A few comments in response:

First, a suggestion that works well for Dutch/Dutch Sign Language, is to write out a sign language sentence in lower-case words, that is, to translate the signing word-for-word. In most spoken languages, that leads to ingrammatical sentences. (Not for all sentences of course, but it’ll be easy to pick one with different word order than the spoken language, or with a repeated pointing pronoun at the end.) In my experience this helps give hearing people a grip on why the sign language is different from the spoken language. Another example that people can easily see as a case of sign-specific grammar is the rich use of space and the inflection of verbs in space: that, too, clearly shows that sign languages are not just ‘manual spoken languages’.

Second, it’s good to point out that whereas there are monolingual speakers of the spoken language in question, there are bound to be no monolingual signers of the sign language: as sign languages have emerged in hearing societies where the spoken language (or languages) was the norm, language contact is inevitable and bound to occur. In a multilingual city such as Hong Kong (Cantonese/English), there will always be language contact. We know this from endless spoken language examples, and only more recently (in the last two decades, I would say), we have come to appreciate how much language contact there is between a signed and a spoken language. (There’s some discussion on whether this is the case for ‘village sign languages/shared signing communities’, but my take on that is that we haven’t done enough research in such communities to establish how the language contact takes place, after all there are other ways of sign/spoken mixing or blending than the use of mouthings.) So, in fact it would be rather surprising if we would not see language contact having an impact on the sign languages, which are always the smaller language in any society.

Finally, as I point out at the end of the second lecture, there may be many other types of language contact (such as borrowing of idiomatic multi-word expressions from the spoken language) that we simply haven’t looked at yet as part of the repertoire of ‘real sign language’. That means that I don’t think we know enough yet to fully answer the question how a sign  language and a spoken language in a community are related.

BTW, I’m not sure how this is in your community, but language contact can also go the other way: young hearing speakers in the Netherlands sometimes use the ‘I love you’ handshape/sign from ASL, effectively borrowing a sign into their spoken repertoire. I’m sure this will happen more in the future in the Netherlands, now more hearing people are learning NGT. And perhaps also in your country?

1. I would like to know the website you mentioned that we can go to access a free copy the book or research you were talking about in your presentation. Thank you for the very informative and well-paced presentation.

Thank you for your interest in my research. In my presentation, I mentioned the website where people can download Sign Languages and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages:

https://www.ecml.at/ECML-Programme/Programme2012-2015/ProSign/tabid/1752/Default.aspx

Scroll down this web page, and you will see the document (Sign Languages and the CEFR for Languages: Common Reference Level Descriptors). You can click on it to download it.

If you would like access to any of the other publications I mention in my presentation, please email me at ksnoddon@ryerson.ca.

1.  By the end of the talk, the concept of plurilingualism was introduced. It was described as a perspective that focuses on the significance of the already possessed, partial, yet functional competencies in a language (languages) as far as I can remember. It seems that plurilanguaging could mean switching among multiple languages easily depending on the situations, which still require a high level of language competencies in all of the acquired languages the person has. It sounds quite like a very similar but “less harsh” version of multilingualism. I am interested in the concept but am a bit confused at the moment. Could you please further elaborate the differences between plurilingualism and multilingualism?  Also, could a person be semi-lingual in all the languages he/she possesses? Is it still possible for a person who had undergone persistent deprivation and has language dysfluency to get to a point where their language competencies could be qualified as plurilingual?

Thank you very much for this question. Plurilingualism is defined by the Council of Europe (2001, p. 4, https://rm.coe.int/1680459f97) as multilingualism at the level of the individual. It relates to the individual’s whole linguistic repertoire. From this perspective, multilingualism refers to the different languages in a given society, but plurilingualism is about the individual’s repertoire. Plurilingualism does not mean that people need to master languages to a native-speaker level. Rather, all linguistic abilities have a place.

I feel the concept of semilingualism is not relevant to plurilingualism because plurilingualism endorses what may be seen as partial or “truncated” competencies in different languages (these competencies are parts of a whole linguistic repertoire). We are all plurilingual, since all language abilities have a place in plurilingualism.

In the introduction to my book Critical Perspectives on Plurilingualism in Deaf Education, I discuss the concept of plurilingualism further as related to deaf students. I am happy to share this chapter. Please email me at ksnoddon@ryerson.ca if you would like a copy.

2. Both in person and cyber bullying, public shaming and verbal violences from consumers to interpreters have been one of the issues we encountered frequently. Many novice interpreters dropped out from the profession while some of us required life-long psychiatric service support. The hardest part of this is when we tried to have open dialogues, some Deaf interpreters with professional training on sign interpreting would also blame hearing and CODA interpreters with “You are just not Deaf” and “You just don’t understand our Deaf culture at all”. In some cases, some deaf service consumers would also blame the interpreters for the unwanted results or outcomes. In my defence to my fellow interpreters, some of us were also (vicariously) traumatized in those interpreting assignments. The conflicts often lie on systematically oppressed groups and privileged hearing/CODA service providers. How could our villages provide support to the interpreters to avoid being burnt-out? How could we avoid such traumas and vicarious traumatization (also the cycle of them) to occur?

 

A.     Take care of yourself.  I’m sorry that you and your colleagues have experienced abuse from Deaf consumers.  There is never an excuse for mistreating another human being.  Interpreters’ work is very stressful on the mind and body and they often experience vicarious trauma even when consumers are not intentionally being disrespectful or abusive toward the interpreter.  My number one suggestion is to take care of yourself, even if it means you decide to turn down assignments with abusive consumers.  Unfortunately, your decision may mean that you need to find income from another job to supplement your interpreting income.  Or leaving the professional altogether.  If enough interpreters refuse to serve abusive consumers, then these individuals will face the outcome of their behavior.

B.      Licensure law, code of conduct, and a formal complaint recourse.  That being said, I do not have much more to suggest because I don’t know:

• the particular grievances that the Deaf consumers in your context have,
• whether your context has minimum standards for who can legally practice interpreter services,
• whether there is a standard interpreter code of conduct that has been developed in concert with Deaf leaders so that underlying cultural values are articulated, and
• whether there is a formalized grievance process for alleged violations of the code of conduct.

Having a shared set of values and expectations that is embodied in a professional code of conduct may help reduce the cultural conflicts and misunderstandings.  This has been somewhat effective in the case of the Commonwealth of Kentucky where I live.  Kentucky has interpreter consumer protection/licensure regulations that stipulate:

1. what is required to earn a license to practice as a professional,
2. incorporating a code of conduct for interpreters in the regulations of a licensure law, and
3. establishing a formal complaint procedure that gives consumers the right to air their grievances for any alleged violations of the code of conduct.

See: https://kbi.ky.gov/ 

I honestly believe that reports of consumers being abusive toward interpreters are rare here in Kentucky because there are legal consumer protections in place and there is recourse for complaints to be heard by the state licensure board when violations are observed.  And conversely, this same process can protect the interpreter against frivolous complaints as the board can throw out unsubstantiated complaints.  The licensure board acts as an impartial judge and consumers can feel that they are being heard.  In US states where there is no licensure law, an ethics complaint can still be made to the national Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf organization if the interpreter is RID certified (see information about the complaint procedures to the RID Ethical Practices System here: https://rid.org/ethics/file-a-complaint/ ).

1. While interpreters are expected to be the allies of the Deaf community, we are often engaged in discussion where the Deaf community might NOT be happy with interpreters’ decisions. At one time, I was fighting for the arrangement of team interpreting while the service consumers assumed one hearing interpreter can work continuously for four to six hours without bathroom breaks. Some Deaf people would also consider hearing interpreters’ initiatives a threat to the existing system with comments like “It’s your proposal to the organization that might lead to the deprivation of sign language accessibility”. The tension often lies on how interpreters can really work and how they are expected to work. What are your suggestions to the villages on resolving such a tension?

 

It is difficult to make suggestions without knowing more about your particular situation and the cultural values and laws of your nation.  Resistance to hiring a team of at least 2 interpreters to work an all-day assignment still happens here in the US, but it usually comes from hearing-run organizations and companies who only want to meet the bare-minimum requirement of providing accommodations under the federal Americans with Disability Act.  They typically are forced to hire two interpreters for any assignment over 2 hours because they make requests through an interpreter referral agency and nearly all the agencies have this standard rule.

Here are a few suggestions that may need a lot of time and basic trust-building between villages before people’s perceptions will change:

A.     Intentionally involve Deaf interpreters.  Part of my overall point in my talk is to intentionally include and embed Deaf interpreters into the interpreter profession “village.”  In your context, it appears that there is a basic lack of empathy of what it is like to interpret for more than 2 hours.  And in general, it appears that there is a lack of respect and trust of the opinion of hearing interpreters.  If Deaf interpreters are able to directly experience the fatigue of interpreting for long periods of time, and if these Deaf interpreters’ opinions are more respected by the Deaf community, then there is more hope for the community to trust and respect the opinion of the interpreter village.

B.      Deaf leadership in the profession.  Furthermore, if there is a formal professional interpreter organization in your context and if there are Deaf leaders involved in the decisions of the interpreter organization—even if they are not practicing Deaf interpreters—this may also go a long way to building respect to any declarations of standard practice and working conditions for interpreters.  For example, the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf in the US has official Standard Practice Papers (SPPs, see: https://rid.org/about-rid/about-interpreting/setting-standards/standard-practice-papers/ ).  Relevant SPPs to your situation are:

• Self-Care (2007)
• Coordinating Interpreters for Conferences (2007)
•  Team Interpreting (2007)

Here is the preamble that is printed at the top of each RID SPP:

“The Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Inc., (RID) Standard Practice Paper (SPP) provides a framework of basic, respectable standards for RID members’ professional work and conduct with consumers. This paper also provides specific information about the practice setting. This document is intended to raise awareness, educate, guide and encourage sound basic methods of professional practice. The SPP should be considered by members in arriving at an appropriate course of action with respect to their practice and professional conduct.

It is hoped that the standards will promote commitment to the pursuit of excellence in the practice of interpreting and be used for public distribution and advocacy.”

These type of documented standards are effective in the US because there is generally a high value here of the “Rule of Law” and the collective power of a professional organization.  Disputes between people in the US are typically resolved when you can defer your opinion to a higher written authority (SPPs or position papers) and/or research results.  Canada’s interpreter organization (CASLI) has similar “position papers” (see: http://www.aslia.ca/position_papers).  Some grassroots Deaf people here in the US may not respect written SPPs, especially if they are not translated into ASL.  But they may still respect the spirit of the profession’s opinions if there is Deaf leadership involved in the profession.

C.     Planning far in advance for a revenue source and budget for a team of interpreters.  It seems that part of the resistance to hiring a team of interpreters is related to the cost.  Because of the Americans with Disabilities Act in the US context, organizations and businesses have learned that they must plan ahead to find the revenues and budget for interpreter service costs.  Some of the costs for interpreters at an event can be spread over the registration fees that all participants must pay, and/or the combination of other ongoing revenue streams within an organization.  It is common here in the US to have the cost of closed captioning of television programs covered by an outside corporate sponsor in exchange for advertising.  Similarly, conferences can have corporate sponsors subsidize the cost of putting on an event, including hiring interpreters, in exchange for advertising space.

6.       （もしいる場合）キャプション担当者は、どのようなトレーニングが必要ですか？例えば、ろう者が医療コースを受講する場合、キャプション担当者に予備知識は必要ですか？

グリフィス大学では、キャプション担当者のトレーニングを行っていません。ライブ、クラス内、リモート、そして全てのビデオにキャプションを提供するために、外部機関を利用しています。

私たちの仕事量が多すぎるため、キャプションのトレーニングと制作をすべて自分たちで行うことはできません。そのため、大手のキャプション会社に委託していますが、私たちが提供する仕事量は多いため、かなりの額を請求されます。

私たちが利用しているキャプション会社は、私たちの卒業生がキャプションプログラムを設計・開発して、教育通訳サポートを確立させた所です。この会社では、スタッフのスキルに合わせて仕事をマッチングしてくれるので、医療用語については、そのような用語に精通している、またはスキルを持っているメンバーが担当してくれます。

私たちは、学生がアクセスする前にキャプションを見直し、必要に応じて修正を依頼し、正確さを確保しています。

5.     グリフィス大学には職場でのろう者のアクセスを助けるリソースがありますか？

ええ、ろうのグリフィス大学職員は、サポートを受けています。連邦政府が提供するスキームにアクセスすることができ、オースランやキャプション支援、技術的な機器の購入に対して、助成を受けられます。

グリフィス大学は、ろう学生支援プログラムのスタッフのために視覚で感知できる火災警報器を設置し、オフィスに視覚で感知できるインターフォンを購入し、おおむねスタッフをうまくサポートしてくれています。

連邦政府の制度は、オーストラリアで継続的に雇用されている全ての労働者に適用されるので、これはグリフィス大学に限ったことではありません。

グリフィス大学は、ろう学生支援プログラムスタッフが他のスタッフにオースランのクラスを教えることを支援しており、より多くのスタッフが、スタッフや学生とのコミュニケーションのためにオースランを学べるようになっています。

学生が学位を取得した後、外部の職場のためのリソースを提供することはありませんが、アドバイスはできますし、彼らが選んだ仕事の分野で、ろう者のためのリソースを提供している組織も、数多くあります。

4.     オーストラリアの多くのろう者は優れた言語スキルを持っていて、オースランを使えて、英語で文章を書くことができます。どのようにして、これを実現しているのでしょうか？

これは一般的な質問なので、具体的にお答えすることはできませんが、オーストラリアの教育システムは、クラスにオースランの通訳を配置したり、主要科目の支援をしたりすることで、ある程度役に立っています。完璧ではありませんし、現在の制度では、良い成績をとれないろうの学生がいることも事実ですが。また、大学入学前に学校で習わなかった学習スキルを補うことができる、素晴らしい専門教育システムもあります。

多くのろうの学生は、理想的とは言えない英語力をもって大学に入学しますが、コースの固有の要件を満たすことができる限り、英語力と筆記課題については、我々の方である程度サポートすることができます。学生のスキルを高めるために、英語の橋渡しコースを用意しています。

3.     多くのろう者は、書記言語のせいで差別されています。これはオーストラリアでも起こりますか？この状況に、どのように対処していますか？

英語のスキルがコースの成果に内在している場合は、英語のスキルを身につける必要があります。私たちは、このスキル発達を支援する橋渡しのプログラムを用意しています。また、全ての筆記提出物について、スペルや文法に過度の減点を課さないよう、合理的な調整を交渉しもします。グリフィス大学には、学生が提出する前に筆記課題を見直し、文章や文法の間違いを修正するための支援を行う手段がいくつかあります。学習アドバイザーや留学生は、特に大学院課程であれば、学生主導の団体を利用して、筆記課題全体を見直し、間違いを修正することができます。

学生が、英語力のせいで妨害を受けるのはよくありません。これは小さな障壁であり、対処することができるものです。

内容を理解した上で、研究することが最も重要であり、そうできれば、他のことが全て、可能になるのです！

ろうの学生が英語教育の学位を取得しようとする場合、高水準のスキルが不可欠であり、英語に苦手意識があると、英語のための合理的な調整を受けられる可能性は低くなります。これは、オーストラリアの法律で、卒業前に英語と数学のスキルをテストする必要があるためです。とはいえ、私たちの所には、教職課程を修了し、現在グリフィスや他の大学で教職課程に就いている手話使用者のろうの学生がたくさんいますので、それも可能なことなのです。

2.     ろうの留学生は、どのコースにも登録できるのか、それともろう者向けのコースにのみ登録する必要があるのでしょうか？受講したいコースにはどれでも、通訳がつくのでしょうか？手話（例：オースラン）を知っている教師はいますか？

留学生はどのコースにも入学することができますが、コースの履修条件を満たす必要があります。ろうであることや、聴覚の程度で制限を受けることはありません。重要なのは、入学要件を満たし、コースを修了する能力があり、コース固有の要件を満たしていれば、入学できるということです。本校には、現在、歯学を専攻しているろうの留学生がいますし、さまざまな分野でろうの学生が活躍しています。

通訳支援はオースランで行われるので、ろうの留学生はオースランを学ばないと、完全には理解できません。グリフィス大学は、学生が地元のろうコミュニティに参加し、オースランを学ぶ機会を提供する支援ができます。まだオースランや英語を学習中であれば、学位取得のための授業では、ライブで、英語の字幕サポートを受けることができます。勉強を始める前にオースランのスキルを身につけることを強く推奨していて、時には、オーストラリアのろう者の家庭に身を置くことが、この急成長の助けになることもあります。

グリフィスでは過去に、流暢なオースラン使用者や、自身がろう者である教師や講師がいました。現在はいませんが、状況は変化するもので、学生が入ってきて学んでから講師になったり、講師が自分の興味のために言語を学んだりすることもあります。現在、オースランの博士号を取得している学生がいますが、その学生を指導しているのは、博士号を取得しているろうの非常勤の指導教官ですので、ろう者主導で行われています。

1. 素晴らしいろう者支援プログラムですね。そもそもこのような支援を提供するために、大学や政府を説得する最初のステップは何だったのでしょうか。

最初のステップは、支援の必要性と、政府の障害者法に関する法的枠組みを示すことでしょう。国ごとに法律や政策は異なります。ここでは、私たちがどのようにしてプログラムを立ち上げたかを説明します。あなたの地域、大学、政府に働きかけるためには、その既存の枠組みを参照する必要があるでしょう。

故デズモンド・パワー・AM名誉教授は、ろう者がろう者の先生になることを、個人的に望んでいました。1985年に当時のブリスベン高等教育学校（後にグリフィス大学に統合）で、教職課程の学士号を取得したろう者の学生を支援する革新的なプログラムを設立したのが、デスモンド・パワー氏でした。1985年に5人の学生が教職課程を開始したのは、そのような機会均等を求める法律が制定されるずっと前のことでした。デスモンドは時代に先駆けて、クオータクラブとライオンズクラブから通訳のための資金と、第1期生のための特別補助金をプログラムに提供しました。彼は資金調達と、その分配を行いました。

ろう学生支援プログラムは、国内で最も広範な支援サービスをろうの学生に提供し続けており、その分野ではトップを走っています。ブリスベンの他の大学や職業教育機関に通う学生への教育通訳支援も行っています。プログラムは35年以上にわたり、ろうの学生に通訳、ノートテイキング、技術的・教育的支援を提供してきました。プログラムはろうのスタッフによって運営され、教育、科学、社会福祉、ビジネスなど、あらゆる種類の学位を取得するろうの学生をサポートしています。

今日、オーストラリアの法律では、全ての大学が、入学条件を満たしていれば、ろうの学生に勉学の支援を提供することを義務付けています。グリフィスのろう学生支援プログラムは非常によく機能しており、同じ都市圏にある他の主要大学である、クイーンズランド大学とクイーンズランド工科大学は、グリフィスのスタッフを雇って、学生に支援を提供しています。グリフィスは過去に、サウス・クイーンズランド大学やサンシャイン・コースト大学の学生をサポートしたこともあります。グリフィスはブリスベンのTAFEに加盟する多くの教職専門学校にも、通訳支援やろうの学生を支援するための情報を提供しています。

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