Social Role Valorization

This workshop provides an introduction to Social Role Valorization (SRV), using the core themes developed by Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger, considered to be one of the most influential thinkers in the field of mental retardation in the world. Dr. Wolfensberger’s work helped lay the foundation for many current human service trends, including integration, safeguarding of individual rights, and the deinstitutionalization movement. 

SRV is a systematic and universally applicable concept for structuring human services, strongly anchored in the empiricism of psychology, sociology, and long and broad human experience. 

SRV suggests a close relationship between the socially perceived value roles that people hold, and whether people in those roles will be accorded opportunities and other good things of life. Bad things tend to get done to people who are seen in devalued roles, and good things tend to be afforded to people in positively valued roles. 

Topics to be explored will include: the universality of social devaluation; the defining power of roles in people’s lives; strategies for pursuing socially valued roles, or at least less devalued roles, for devalued people, with an aim toward improving their life conditions; enhancement of people’s social images; and enhancement of people’s competencies. 

Wills and Trusts

These one day workshops are designed to provide pertinent information pertaining to the need  for and set up of a will and/or trust for those who have developmental disabilities or have a family member with developmental disabilities.  This workshop also serves to debunk some of the common misunderstandings of wills and trusts planning.  

Devaluation and the Service Worker's Role

These one day workshops are designed to give policy makers, providers, and parents a very brief overview of social role valorization and its importance for people with developmental disabilities.  Attendance at this workshop does not make you eligible to attend a PASSING workshop.          

PASSING

This workshop may only be attended by those who have previously attended either a SRV or SRV-10 workshop, as it is a training on the practical application of Social Role Valorization   (SRV).   PASSING is an instrument for evaluating the quality of any human service according to how well it implements SRV theory.  

Protecting the Lives of Hospital Patients, Especially Those who are Devalued by Society

Based on the work of Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger of the Syracuse University Training Institute, this workshop explores the unpleasant and paradoxical reality that anyone who is hospitalized is exposed to grave dangers which jeopardize that person’s health and safety—sometimes to the point of making a person dead.  Thus, people need protection in the hospital.  This is a reality for all ill people, including valued citizens, but is especially ominous for people who are members of a socially disadvantaged class, such as people with developmental disabilities.

Strangers in the House

Families who receive in-home support services typically face a major dilemma of trying to maintain the integrity of their private home and family lives despite the inescapable disruptions that come with service-provider presence in the home.  The dilemma exists even when families and individuals have good personal relationships with their in-home support personnel, and even when these are adequately sensitive to the issues at stake.  When good personal relationships and sensitivity are absent, as so often happens, the situation can become intolerable.  This presentation explores this dilemma, offers insights, practical advice, and strategies for managing the issues involved, and invites participants’ reflections on the types of mind-sets that might improve or worsen this dilemma.