Since our founding, The SOS Agency has been known primarily as an ASL interpreting agency. Interpreting remains at the heart of what we do, and the relationships we’ve built with interpreters across our community are the foundation of our success.

At the same time, the communication access landscape continues to evolve — and so are the needs of the organizations and individuals we serve.

As more workplaces, schools, and institutions seek flexible communication options, we are seeing a growing demand for Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) services. To meet that demand, SOS is intentionally expanding our CART network and strengthening our captioning partnerships.

Why We Are Expanding CART

While many Deaf individuals use ASL, not everyone does. We regularly work with:

• late-deafened adults

• hard of hearing professionals

• students who rely on written English

• participants in hybrid or large-group environments

In these settings, CART can be the most effective tool for access. Increasing our CART capacity allows us to offer more tailored solutions and ensure communication access for a broader range of clients.

What This Means for Our Vendor Community

Our expansion into CART does not replace interpreting — it complements it.

We continue to prioritize ASL services while building a stronger captioning network so we can provide the right solution for each assignment. In many cases, interpreting and CART are used together, especially for conferences, higher education, and workplace trainings.

For vendors, this growth creates new opportunities to collaborate with SOS and support communication access in additional ways.

Opportunities for CART Providers

As we expand, we are looking to partner with CART providers who:

• have experience in live captioning across professional settings

• are comfortable working remotely or onsite

• value preparation and collaboration with our team

• are committed to professional standards and reliability

If you currently provide CART services — or are expanding your own service offerings — we welcome the opportunity to connect.

Continuing to Grow Together

The SOS Agency has always been built on strong partnerships with our vendors. Expanding our CART services is another step in ensuring that we can continue to meet the evolving needs of our clients while supporting the professionals who make access possible.

If you are interested in joining our CART network or learning more about upcoming opportunities, we encourage you to reach out to our onboarding team. We look forward to continuing to grow alongside our vendor community.