January 2017 issue of The SRV Journal is at the printers
The January 2017 issue of The SRV Journal is currently at the printers and will be mailed/emailed when completed. In the meantime, this is a list of the articles, reviews and columns:
The Importance of the Citizen Advocacy Scheme in Facilitating Valued Roles for, & the Valuation of, Vulnerable People by Mitchel Peters
A Testament to Courage & Resilience by Deb Espiner & Fran Hartnett
The Importance (& the Benefits) of Being Personally Connected & Engaged with Devalued People, & Its Relevance to Social Role Valorization by Susan Thomas
Learning, Applying & Disseminating Social Role Valorization (SRV): What Family Members & Human Service Workers Have to Say by Judith Sandys & Peg Jenner
SRVx10 Study Groups: Their Development & Results–So Far by John Armstrong
Reviews by Joel Boyce & Christie Mallon
Column by Joe Osburn
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Jesuit Worldwide Learning: Education at the Margins
The mission of Jesuit Worldwide Learning is to “provides tertiary learning to people and communities at the very edges of our societies – be it through poverty, location, lack of opportunity, conflict or forced displacement – so that they can contribute their knowledge and voices to the global community of learners and together we will foster hope to create a more peaceful and humane world.”
This is an interesting project to consider from a Social Role Valorization and PASSING perspective. Who (factually and existentially) are the groups of vulnerable people that this project is focused upon? What are the processes of social devaluation and wounding described in the TEx Talk video? What needs are identified and discussed?
Analyze the project mission and goals in terms of:
• access to the ‘good things of life‘ (including ‘opportunities and expectancies that enable one to discover and develop one’s abilities, skills, gifts and talents’)
• the developmental model
• the role of student
• the culturally valued analogue (of higher education)
• interpersonal identification
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Washington Post article: He was homeless when they took him in.
An interesting Washington Post article (3 February 2017) to read and analyze from an Social Role Valorization perspective, including for points of heightened vulnerability, the process of social devaluation, interpersonal identification, etc.
‘My guardian angel’: He was homeless when they took him in. He became like family to them.
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WSJ article ‘Babies Show a Clear Bias—To Learn New Things’
The 26 October 2016 Wall Street Journal article ‘Babies show a clear bias–to learn new things’ describes contemporary research that reinforces the emphasis in Social Role Valorization (SRV) on imitation, role modeling, competency enhancement and the developmental model. “Babies leap at the chance to learn something new.” This echoes the opening line of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: “all human beings by nature desire to know.” If we want people–no matter how impaired or societally devalued–to learn and become more competent, then it is important to believe that they can learn and hold high expectations for their ability to learn, among other things.
Another point from the article relevant to SRV has to do with interpersonal identification and imitation. The author notes that babies “can figure out who is likely to teach them.” Babies are already figuring out their environment enough to know who they can learn from, and accordingly pay greater attention to those people. This ability does not stop with babies of course. SRV proposes that we can facilitate interpersonal identification with the goal of fostering imitation, competency enhancement and learning (Wolfensberger, SRV monograph, 3rd rev. ed., pp. 118-121).
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WSJ article: ‘A small fix in mind-set to keep students in school’
The 18-19 June 2016 Wall Street Journal article ‘A small fix in mind-set to keep students in school’ is relevant to the Social Role Valorization theme of mind-sets and expectancies. It describes two different studies on the power of mind-sets in schools.
From the article:
“The psychologist Carol Dweck at Stanford has argued that both teachers and students have largely unconscious ‘mind-sets’–beliefs and expectations–about themselves and others and that these can lead to a cascade of self-fulfilling prophecies.”
“Changing mind-sets is hard: simply telling people that they should think differently often backfires. The two new studies used clever techniques to get them to take on different mind-sets more indirectly.”
“In the first study … the most important part was a section that asked the teachers to provide examples of how they themselves used discipline respectfully. The researches told the participants that those examples could be used to train others–treating the teachers as experts with something to contribute … The researchers didn’t tell people to have a better attitude. They just encouraged students and teachers to articulate their own best impulses. That changed mind-sets–and changed lives.”
Note the connection made between changing mind-sets and changing lives, or in SRV language, how can changing mind-sets create greater access to the ‘good things of life’ for societally devalued people?
How might these studies be relevant in other human service fields? Could such studies be replicated with human service workers?
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podcast ‘A heart outrun’
This podcast would make for an interesting exercise for a classroom, SRV study group or workshop. It is from a regular podcast series entitled ‘Modern Love’ sponsored by the NY Times and a Boston public radio station. The podcast is # 18, ‘ A Heart Outrun.’
This podcast includes the recitation of a written essay followed by several interviews. I recommend listening to the essay written by Gary Presley, read by a professional actor (that in itself is something to consider from an SRV perspective), but also to the interviews with Gary and his wife Belinda.
As an SRV exercise, I think that this would require thinking about the essay and interviews from the perspective of various SRV concepts and themes. In light of the complexity of human relationship, and the empirical nature of SRV, any analysis would also raise issues outside of SRV.
Podcast link:
http://www.wbur.org/series/modernlove
The essay:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/fashion/29Love.html
A related website:
http://www.wbur.org/2016/05/11/a-heart-outrun-modern-love
Some SRV issues to consider include:
• relationship domain (Wolfensberger, A brief introduction to SRV, 3rd revised edition, p. 30)
• mindsets and expectancies
• language and titles used to refer to the couple
• heightened vulnerability
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Special Olympics and Microsoft Cloud
Check out this site and accompanying video from Microsoft Cloud about the Special Olympics. Microsoft has also placed ads on this topic in several magazines.
Based on the material in the SRV monograph and workshops on image enhancement, as one of the tools of role valorization, and the material on imagery in the PASSING tool and workshop, what is your SRV based analysis of the video and advertisement? This would be a good exercise for university classes and for SRV study groups.
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NY Times: ‘Italian cuisine worth going to prison for’
This NY Times article describes InGalera, a restaurant located “inside the Bollate penitentiary, a medium-security prison with 1,100 inmates on the outskirts of Milan. The waiters, dishwashers and cooks have been convicted of homicide, armed robbery, drug trafficking and other crimes.”
According to the article, “ ‘The main problem has been that they do little during the day, which doesn’t help them at the present, nor for their future outside prisons,’ said Alessio Scandurra, who works for Antigone, a nonprofit group focused on the rights of detainees.
This is an interesting article to examine from a Social Role Valorization perspective, including such elements as:
• valued social roles
• access to the ‘good things of life’
• image enhancement and competency enhancement as avenues toward valued social roles
• theme of interpersonal identification
• theme of personal social integration, and valued social and societal participation
• theme of model coherency
• In the PASSING manual, Dr. Wolfensberger and Susan Thomas write that one of the few human service practices that does not have a culturally valued analog (CVA) is a prison (p. 31).
Marc Tumeinski
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article ‘In school for the sake of keeping the mind stimulated’
The 2 January 2016 NY Times article entitled ‘In school for the sake of keeping the mind stimulated’ describes a program model that would be interesting to analyze from an SRV and PASSING perspective, including elements such as:
- contemporary level of societal devaluation and heightened vulnerability for older, retired people
- multiple role goals (see the SRV monograph by Wolfensberger)
- new societally valued role(s)
- previously held valued role(s)
- access to the ‘good things of life’
- image juxtapositions
- role language
- image enhancement and competency enhancement with an eye toward social roles
- personal social integration and valued social/societal participation
- physical and social settings
- social interactions
- activities
- action on the individual level, and on the level of secondary social systems
- program and activity labels
- financial cost
- model coherency
- etc.
Each of these could be analyzed separately based on the information contained in the article about the program model, and perhaps further research on specific Osher programs. Part of what SRV and PASSING teach is how to look at a service from multiple perspectives, and then also to look at how these combine into an overall impact on people served.
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Glen Campbell “I’ll be me”
The documentary film “I’ll be me” about musician Glen Campbell would make an interesting example to analyze in an Social Role Valorization workshop, a topic for discussion in an SRV study group, or an SRV-based review assignment for a university class.
From the website for the film:
In 2011, music legend Glen Campbell set out on an unprecedented tour across America. They thought it would last 5 weeks instead it went for 151 spectacular sold out shows over a triumphant year and a half across America. What made this tour extraordinary was that Glen had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He was told to hang up his guitar and prepare for the inevitable. Instead, Glen and his wife went public with his diagnosis and announced that he and his family would set out on a “Goodbye Tour.”
The film is a mix of biography, interview and concert film. It has a lot of material, including various viewpoints on Alzheimer’s, that would be appropriate subjects for SRV analysis. It could be looked at in relation to SRV implementation strategies, including image and competency enhancement, guidelines for applying SRV measures, role goals, role communicators, access to the ‘good things of life,’ safeguarding societally valued roles, etc.
Several elements of the Glen Campbell website could also be analyzed from an SRV perspective, including blog posts from Campbell’s family and friends.
We would welcome submission of written reviews of the film for The SRV Journal.
Marc Tumeinski
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