The collaboration between the Master in Interpreting and the police school in East-Flanders was established in 2018. Thanks to interpreting lecturers, aspiring police inspectors can learn the most important legislation surrounding sworn interpreting, the basic principles in interpreting ethics and they learn how to use interpreters to the best of their capabilities with a few rules of thumb. Likewise, interpreting students learn about communication strategies related to reception, intervention and interrogation from police inspectors.
The joint practice sessions are organized two to six times a year. These sessions consist of role-playing exercises where the aspiring police inspectors practice reception and intervention with foreign language speakers (interpreting lecturers, trainees, observers) and receive assistance from an interpreting student. Both groups receive feedback on their performance from all supervisors.
These exercises are held alternately on the Mercator Campus and on-site.
The Federal Police Communication Service dedicated the following article to this project in PolNews: