Social Role Valorization Including 10 Related Themes

This workshop provides an introduction to Social Role Valorization (SRV) using the 10 core themes, developed

by Dr. W. Wolfensberger. Dr. Wolfensberger's work helped lay the foundation for many current human service

trends, including integration, safeguarding of rights, and the deinstitutionalization movement.

SRV is a systematic and universally applicable concept for structuring human services is anchored in the

empiricism of psychology and sociology. SRV suggests a close relationship between the socially perceived value

of the 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, enhancing

people's social images, and enhancing people's competencies.