Client Meeting Roles & Responsibilities Lead Interviewer
As soon as you arrive, stop by the office to pick up the files for your meetings and connect with the RILA staff member who prepared them.
- Be sure to brief your interpreter and note taker about your clients, and be sure to give them advance warning about anything graphic or traumatic that we’re aware of in the client’s story. Feel free to ask the clinic coordinator to wait before bringing the client in if necessary!
- During the interview, address yourself to the client (rather than the interpreter), make eye contact, be courteous, and express sympathy when appropriate.
- If the client mentions changing their address, be sure to connect with a RILA staff member to see if we need to file a change of address form. If the client brings in a blue change of address form into the meeting, go ahead and fill it out with the client. Return all change of address forms to Carrie, or give to another RILA staff member if Carrie is unavailable. Interpreter
- You can interpret simultaneously or sequentially, whichever style you prefer.
- Please interpret the client’s responses word for word, even if you need to ask the client to pause for a minute while you do this. DO NOT SUMMARIZE the client’s responses, as this could result in missing critical details, or requiring the client to repeat details multiple times.
- When interpreting a client’s statement, use the first person (i.e. “I was threatened…”) rather than the third person (“She said that she was threatened…”).
- Feel free to communicate with your lead interviewer if you feel like the client is not understanding a question well and you’d like to rephrase what is being asked, or ask the client clarifying questions. Just be sure to interpret the full exchange so that it ends up in the notes! Note Taker
- It is important to capture EVERYTHING that is discussed in the meeting!
- Things that the client says should be captured as close to word for word as possible. Feel free to ask for repetition if needed!
- Things that the lead interviewer says can be paraphrased if necessary, as long as there is enough detail to understand the question and provide context to the response.
- Be sure to get the correct spellings of names (especially family members) and places. Again, feel free to ask the interpreter or lead interviewer to get spellings for you.
- During meetings when we are reviewing an application with a client, it may seem like there aren’t a lot of notes to take. However, we still need you to record specifics of what was reviewed with the client and provide as much detail as possible about any changes. For example: “Reviewed page 1, no changes; Reviewed page 2, change daughter Angela’s birthdate from 11/08/2004 to 08/11/2004”. If the interpreter is not interpreting in this level of detail, feel free to ask them!
- Your notes should be sent to helen@restorationimmigration.org as soon as possible, ideally before you leave clinic, but no later than the morning following clinic.