Domestic violence shelter offers translation services

Domestic violence does not just speak English.

And at the Family Sunshine Center, non-English proficient clients will now benefit from translation services, after the center on Wednesday received a $500 check from J. Austin Wade, a former employee of the Montgomery-based Weil Brothers Cotton and current vice president of CyraCom Language Solutions, which provides translation services across the nation.

The Weil family has been long-time supporters of the Family Sunshine Center, and the donation was offered in honor of them. The center, which has served victims and survivors of family violence for 30 years in Autauga, Butler, Chilton, Crenshaw, Elmore, Lowndes and Montgomery counties, has been supplied with specialized phones, and when non-English speaking victims call in, representatives from the center conduct a conference call with a CyraCom interpreter.

CyraCom, which can serve 200 languages, will cover the translation services costs for the center for the next three years.

"If you know it's a particular language, you can call for the interpreter on the phone," Wade said. "If you're not sure (of the language), there's a (toll free) number you can call, and a representative can get on the line and figure out what the language is."

One thing that has been done in the past is using children as translators because they can interpret, said Karen Sellers, executive director of the center.

"But they're children, and they shouldn't have to tell us what happened to their mom," she said. "So this is fabulous."

CyraCom has 1,500 interpreters throughout the United States. The company also provides all the services for Ronald McDonald Houses throughout the country.

In the past three years, there have been 11 non-English speaking adults served by the Family Sunshine Center, said Kathy Jones, its residential supervisor.

"Spanish is a big language that we need assistance with," she said. "We have some very rare languages that we really need assistance with. In the past, we might have had Mextico, an Indian language. It's not Spanish, but that seems to be a growing population here in Montgomery."

The translation service, Wade said, will expand the scope of services the Family Sunshine Center provides to "the other language communities in the area.

"I received a call from (the Family Sunshine Center) a couple of months ago … they said they might need some help with a particular languaged-family and I thought, 'If you need help with one family, you might need help with more.'"