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.