Social Role Valorization theme: model coherency (post #2 in a series)

This is the second in a series of posts concerning the Social Role Valorization theme of relevance, potency, and model coherency of measures and services (see the SRV monograph by Wolfensberger, 1998, 3rd. rev. ed. published in 2004, pp. 111-118).

I briefly mentioned in the first post that Wolfensberger had described relevance, potency and model coherency as applicable for discrete service measures as well as more broadly for service models, programs, efforts, etc. Model coherency is useful as well for informal as well as formal service measures, models and efforts. (Note that Wolfensberger and Thomas in the 2007 PASSING 3rd rev. ed. Ratings Manual [pg. 37] briefly describe service as ‘any action that is intended to address some need of a person, group or class’ and a server as ‘any person who–either on their own initiative, or deployed by a human service agency–performs, carries out, or supports functions of service to one or more recipients. Such a server may be either paid or unpaid for rendering such service.’)

With the above in mind, we might, for example, apply and/or teach about the constructs of relevance, potency and model coherency in terms of specific service measures, e.g.:

• supporting a 10-year old student (with physical and/or intellectual impairments) to complete a homework assignment

• helping one’s elderly grandmother (maybe who is no longer able to drive safely, or perhaps is starting to show some signs of forgetfulness, even senility) to have lunch out with her friends at their favorite restaurant

… as well as more broad, long-term service efforts (whether informal, family- or friend-based efforts, or formal human service programs and agencies), e.g.:

• helping a poor family, who has been homeless on and off for many years, to have and hold onto home in a typical neighborhood, to be in valued roles of neighbor

• supporting a group of adults with significant mental disorder(s) to each find and maintain competitive work, to be in the valued role of employee

 

Whether about a specific service measure or about a service program or model (NB: see the June 2006 SRV Journal article by Armstrong and Shevellar for some discussion of relevance, potency and model in terms of respite), the construct of relevance, potency and model coherency requires that: “the right servers should be using the right materials, methods, and language, in the right settings, in order to do the right thing for the right recipients, who are grouped in the right way” (Wolfensberger, 1998, 116).

Note that the above comments and examples also implicitly highlight three key aspects of the SRV theme of relevance, potency and model coherency:

• matching the identities and needs of the people served

• matching the culturally valued analog(ues) (i.e., school, work, home, friendship, etc.)

• incorporating the power and reality of valued social roles

More on the connections between model coherency and these three key aspects in future posts.

Marc Tumeinski

Social Role Valorization theme: model coherency (post #1 in a series)

This is the first in a series of posts concerning the Social Role Valorization theme of relevance, potency, and model coherency of measures and services (see the SRV monograph by Wolfensberger, 1998, 3rd. rev. ed. published in 2004, pp. 111-118). Model coherency in my opinion is one of the most elegant and powerful of the themes, with immediate applicability to any informal or formal service effort, big or small. While complex to implement, and containing multiple and complicated implications, the essence of this concept as it was developed by Wolfensberger can be grasped fairly readily:

“Thus, a very colloquial way of putting it is to say that: the right servers should be using the right materials, methods, and language, in the right settings, in order to do the right thing for the right recipients, who are grouped in the right way” (Wolfensberger, 1998, 116).

While obviously drawing on his deep reading in other fields of study as well as his own broad experiences, Wolfensberger’s particular formulation of model coherency is incredibly clear and concise, while taking into account its complexities. In this post, therefore, I will let his SRV text largely speak for itself, highlighting key points by using Wolfensberger’s own published words to lay out brief descriptions of: a) relevance and potency, b) model, and c) model coherency.

 

a) As background, we want to have a clear understanding of the concepts of relevance and potency: 

“Relevance means that the content addresses a major or significant need of the people to whom the content is addressed” (Wolfensberger, 1998, 111).

“Potency means that whatever processes are employed should be the most effective and efficient means for addressing a party’s needs, so that one makes the best use of the time of recipients, rather than either addressing the need in a fashion which is not particularly pointed or effective, or outright wasting their time” (Wolfensberger, 1998, 113-114).

Is the service measure relevant to what the people served truly need? (NB: In PASSING workshops, this is one of the fundamental questions that PASSING teams spend lots of discussion time on.) Is the service using the most potent means available to address these need(s)?

 

b) With relevance and potency in mind, what elements make up a service model? 

 “… human service models are composed of assemblages of assumptions, contents, and processes” (Wolfensberger, 1998, 116). 

 “Assumptions are the underlying premises, beliefs, and ideologies (whether conscious or unconscious) on which the model is based” (Wolfensberger, 1998, 109). 

 “Content refers to what the service model actually delivers, i.e., what does it convey to recipients” (Wolfensberger, 1998, 109). 

 “Process refers to the means by which the content is conveyed” (Wolfensberger, 1998, 110).

Wolfensberger further points out (e.g., Wolfensberger, 1998, p. 110; introductory SRV workshops; the PASSING manual and PASSING workshops) that the processes or means can include: setting, schedules, techniques, tools and equipment, groupings, identities of (informal and formal) servers, and language used.

 

c) And finally, what about model coherency itself?

 “The ideal service model–i.e., the one with the greatest model coherency–would be derived from the real, primary, and urgent needs of the people to be served, and all of its process components would match harmoniously with each other and the content so as to facilitate effective address of those needs” (Wolfensberger, 1998, 116).

 Part of the model coherency concept in SRV includes that the assumptions, content and means of a service measure or model will a) match the identities and needs of the people served and also b) match the culturally valued analogue(s) for how similar content is ‘delivered’ to societally valued people. (For more on the SRV concept of the ‘culturally valued analog,’ see Wolfensberger, 1998, 118; Wolfensberger and Thomas, 2007, PASSING Ratings Manual 3rd rev. ed., pp. 30-31).

 Back to our first description of model coherency:

 “Thus, a very colloquial way of putting it is to say that: the right servers should be using the right materials, methods, and language, in the right settings, in order to do the right thing for the right recipients, who are grouped in the right way” (Wolfensberger, 1998, 116).

 

We will continue writing about this key theme in future posts. I strongly encourage our readers to share examples of and comments about the SRV concept of model coherency as laid out by Wolfensberger, to share contemporary academic resources relevant to this theme, etc. I look forward to your comments.

 Marc Tumeinski

More on foster care

Ray Lemay sent me a link to this article by Dr. Peter Breggin on the mind drugging of youth in foster care.

A quote from the article:

Now there is a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report confirming that foster children in five states — Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Texas — are receiving shocking amounts of psychiatric drugs. In the words of ABC News, they are “being prescribed psychiatric medications at doses higher than the maximum levels approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in these five states alone. And hundreds of foster children received five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time despite absolutely no evidence supporting the simultaneous use or safety of this number of psychiatric drugs taken together.”

 

Consider the following article quote in light of what Social Role Valorization teaches about the impacts of societal devaluation and wounding, of heightened vulnerability, of rejection and disastrous discontinuity of place and relationship:

Is this widespread psychiatric drugging medically appropriate or indicated? Absolutely not. First of all, these are young children, even infants, who have already been through extremely traumatic experiences. All of them have been taken from their homes and most of them will not have had a stable replacement home. Beyond that, one can only imagine their horrendous living conditions prior to being removed from their families of origin. These children do not need psychoactive substances — they need the best human, caring services that our society can provide. The drugs may make them temporarily more docile, but by disrupting and suppressing normal brain function and development, they add new stressors to their lives and prevent them from adapting and growing as best as possible.

 

Dr. Breggin writes in this article, among other things, of the critical importance of home, parents and family, adult relationships, and school for these young people; all quite consistent with the idea of the culturally valued analog for example; of starting from what is typical and valued in the culture, what most people are familiar with and hold positive expectations of. Rather than turning to mind drugs, how can we strengthen the valued social roles of son and daughter, brother and sister, niece and nephew, neighbor, family friend, kid in the neighborhood and neighbor, student, athlete, choir member, baby-sitter, team member, artist, etc., etc., for these vulnerable young people? Please share your comments, stories and examples on this topic.

For more on the topic of mind drugs from an SRV perspective, see this previous blog entry and these resources:

• Lemay article on ‘Social Role Valorization versus drug therapies’

• Wolfensberger article on the ‘growing threat to the lives of handicapped people in the context of modernistic values’

 

Marc Tumeinski

report: ‘Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth’

A 2010 radio show and 2011 longitudinal study on heightened vulnerability for those in and those leaving the foster care system. The study looks at (in Social Role Valorization terms) heightened vulnerability to devaluation and wounding in various life domains related to home, education, work, family, safety, health, income, etc. These reports indicate in part at least the profound vulnerability of those who are significantly societally devalued and who lose or are denied key valued social roles at a young and formative age. Among the common wounding life experiences discussed are life-defining rejection, being cast into devalued roles, physical and social distantiation, loss of control, loss of relationships, financial and experiential impoverishment, and neglect.

One excerpt from the executive summary report for young adults (ages 23-24) formerly in the foster care system:

At the time of their wave 4 interview, 49 percent of the young adults in the Midwest Study were living in their “own place,” and 21 percent were living with their biological parents or other relatives. Sixteen percent of the male study participants were incarcerated. Since exiting foster care, over two-thirds of the young adults in the Midwest Study had lived in at least three different places, including 30 percent who had lived in five or more places. Even more concerning, 24 percent of these young adults had ever been homeless, 28 percent had ever couch surfed, and 37 percent had ever been homeless or couch surfed since exiting foster care. One-half of the young people who had been homeless had been homeless more than once. Repeated episodes of couch surfing were  even more common, with two-thirds of the young people who had couch surfed having done so on more  than one occasion.

 

An excerpt from the executive summary report for young adults (age 21) formerly in the foster care system:

Previous research suggests that foster youth approach the transition to  adulthood with significant educational deficits (Blome, 1997; Courtney et  al., 2001; McMillan & Tucker, 1999), and these deficits seem to continue  into the early adult years. Nearly one-quarter of the young adults in the  Midwest Study did not have a high school diploma or a GED by age 21 compared with just 11 percent of their Add Health peers. Conversely, only 30 percent of the Midwest Study young adults had completed any college compared with 53 percent of the young adults in Add Health. Although just 2 percent of the young adults in the Midwest Study had even a two-year degree, only one-quarter were currently enrolled in school compared with 44 percent of their Add Health counterparts. Among those who were enrolled, young adults in the Midwest Study were more likely to  be enrolled in a two-year college (56% vs. 25%) but less likely to be enrolled in a  four-year college (28% vs. 71%) than young adults in Add Health.

 

An excerpt from the executive summary of the report on those young persons about to leave the foster care system:

Most of the rest of the youth indicated that they reside in group care/residential treatment centers and independent living arrangements. About four-fifths of the youth reported having a sibling in out-of-home care. Of youth with siblings in care, 23.6 percent reported living with at least one sibling, however only 5.1 percent reported living with all of their biological siblings in the current household.  Most youth experienced considerable instability while living in out-of-home  care. For example, with respect to foster home placements, one-quarter of youth reported only one placement whereas over one-quarter experienced five or more. About two-thirds of all respondents had lived in at least one group home, residential treatment center, or child-caring institution. Less than one-quarter reported only one placement and about 14 percent had four or more. Nearly one half reported having run away from out-of-home care and nearly two-thirds of those who did run away did so on multiple occasions. Over one-quarter reported having wanted, at some point, to be adopted, and the same number had previously been in a placement in which the plan was for their foster parent to adopt them.

Marc Tumeinski

Posted on February 6, 2012 at 8:34 am by MTumeinski · Permalink · One Comment
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: , , ,

article: Social Participation of Students with Special Needs in Regular Primary Education in the Netherlands

This 2010 article describes a study done on the ‘social participation of students’ with impairments ‘in regular primary education in the Netherlands,’ and raises a number of relevant points for our consideration from an SRV perspective. (Note: I am not a statistician nor an academic scientific researcher, so I may be missing key points and questions. I welcome your comments, examples and further thoughts on the article, my post, and this issue.) A few points I want to highlight:

A) The authors lay out a number of characteristics which they propose as foundational to good social participation in school, including:

As a point of reference, Wolfensberger taught and wrote about personal social integration and valued social and societal participation as requiring: ‘(a) valued participation, (b) with valued people (c) in valued activities that (d) take place in valued settings’ (Wolfensberger, A brief introduction to Social Role Valorization, 3rd (rev) ed., p. 123). Wolfensberger and Thomas in the 2007 PASSING manual briefly describe integration as: ‘The valued participation by people in the culturally normative and valued activities and settings of their society, in culturally normative amounts, and with ordinary and valued people’ (p. 33). Further, in Social Role Valorization thinking and application, ‘integration and participation’ are necessarily linked with valued social roles, and thus are tied in with potentially greater access to the ‘good things of life.’ See the article by Lemay for example on ‘Social Role Valorization insights into the integration conundrum’ (Mental Retardation: February 2006, Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 1-12).

One fruitful question might be to compare these two understandings above for similarities as well as differences.

 

B) The article authors point out some of the wounds and negative treatment associated with social devaluation, specifically in schools, that children with impairments likely face, such as:

• ‘A comparison between the acceptance scores of students with and without special needs revealed that the former were significantly less accepted’

• ‘The analyses revealed that the average number of friends of students with special needs … was significantly lower than that of typical students’

• ‘Students with special needs initiated fewer interactions with classmates … than students without special needs’

• ‘Students with special needs received fewer interactions … than their typical classmates’

• ‘Students with special needs had, on average, fewer friends and belonged less often to a group of friends’

The above points seem quite relevant to the wound of rejection and likely of relationship loss, particularly as students get older and interpersonal/social pressures increase (e.g., in teenage years).

 

C) Another relevant point from the article:

‘… students with special needs had fewer interactions with their classmates but more interactions with the teacher. This latter finding can be viewed negatively because interactions with the teacher might be at the expense of interactions with classmates.’

Interaction with a good teacher is obviously helpful for learning, so one question is how to balance necessary interaction with the teacher with interaction with other students.

 

D) The authors also warn of (translated into SRV language) long-term heightened vulnerability and likely long-term consequences of wounding:

‘the consequences of negative social experiences in school can be far-reaching, given that they might lead to maladjustment later in life’

Maladjustment would not be the way I would likely describe it but the larger point stands; Wolfensberger lays out many of the common negative ways that wounded people react to and express their own woundedness (SRV monograph, 3rd (rev.) ed., pp. 22-24), such as alienation, anger, insecurity. (Not that reactions are always negative of course but it is an understandable response to devaluation and wounding.)

 

E) The authors point to the universality of personal and social devaluation: we all have the capacity to devalue; whether we are students, teachers, devalued people themselves, or whomever:

‘For instance, Mand (2007) found that a large proportion of students with behavioural disorders have a negative social position in the classroom and are not liked by peers, not only in regular classes but also in special-education settings. These students are rejected to a comparable degree in both education systems (inclusive classrooms and special schools). Hence, in special education too, there is a real chance that students experience difficulties in their social participation.’

 

F) A final point I want to highlight from the article:

‘In previous years, interventions tended to be aimed solely at the student with special needs (Barrett & Randall, 2004), but from an educational and pedagogical perspective interventions involving other actors seem to be more important.’

If valued social roles are key to personal social integration and valued social participation, as SRV posits, then it makes so much sense to look more broadly at all the people potentially involved, not just the students with impairments, as well as the relevant elements in the physical and social environment (2007 PASSING manual, p. 33). Roles are social, not solitary. They are carried out in particular physical and social settings. And so on. We would do well therefore to consider the range of factors explicated for example in leadership-level SRV workshops, in the SRV monograph by Wolfensberger (3rd (rev.) ed., pp. 122-124), and in PASSING workshops (e.g., including many of the ratings under the rubric 11, 12, 21, 22, etc.).

 

Please share your own insights, stories and examples related to this point about personal social integration and valued societal participation in schools.

Marc Tumeinski

welcome to Millersville University students!

I’d like to extend a warm welcome to our newest readers from Millersville University, those students taking either Applied Foundations in Contemporary Special Education (undergraduate SPED237) or Psychology of Students with Disabilities (graduate SPED601). Some of you have already commented on posts and I look forward to reading more comments as the semester progresses. Welcome!

For our readers, these courses are taught by Dr. Thomas Neuville who, as many of you know from a previous post ,was the executive producer of the DVD set of videos A history of human services, universal lessons and future implications: A two-day lecture by Wolf Wolfensberger & Susan Thomas (Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities, Keystone Institute and Millersville University). See information about purchasing the DVD set at the website here. The December 2011 SRV Journal has a review of this DVD set. Dr. Neuville along with C. Hannah Smith also contributed an article to the December 2008 SRV Journal, describing some of the ways that he has incorporated SRV-related material (such as on social devaluation, wounding, model coherency, etc.) into his university courses for student-teachers.

Marc Tumeinski

 

Posted on February 1, 2012 at 1:27 pm by MTumeinski · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: , , ,

SRV in the News: The upside of delayed retirement

A recent article in Maclean’s spoke about the benefits of delaying retirement and staying longer in the workforce. Featured in the business section, the article speaks mainly about the financial reasons for working past the usual retirement age (65 in Canada).

The article raises several important SRV issues however. Firstly, the inherent value of the worker role. In the SRV monograph Wolfensberger (1998) lists some of the benefits that are accorded to those who hold valued roles: “They are allowed, enabled or even requested to live in valued settings, engage in valued activities, and join valued groups; people cherish their relationships with them, and even seek them out and want to be “seen with” them (p. 44). He goes on to state that people who hold valued roles are much more likely to come into contact with other valued people. This is certainly true for the majority of people in the workforce today.

Secondly, the work role can also be seen as a protective measure for those who are at risk of falling into devalued roles. As I’ve previously written about, the elderly are at great risk of being seen in devalued roles (burden of charity, patient, sick or dying, etc.) and negatively stereotyped because of this. Staying in the work role into old age would do much to counteract negative stereotypes and help prevent a possible rapid slide into devalued roles.

At the moment, a debate rages in Canada whether the age of mandatory retirement should be raised from 65 to 67. See an interesting editorial on the topic here.

The work role has been much discussed in disability related circles as well. See the December 2009 SRV Journal for several articles related to this topic.

As always, I welcome your comments, critiques, stories, etc. on the topic.

Steve Tiffany

Posted on January 31, 2012 at 7:43 pm by stevetiff · Permalink · 3 Comments
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

‘almost friends’?!

An interesting recent post by Jeff McNair at CalBaptist University touches on a common question raised during Social Role Valorization (SRV) workshops, about the nature of the role of friend versus the role of staff or volunteer. This question often raises lots of defenses, which can be a sign that much unconscious devaluation is present. This question also speaks to one of the most fundamental human needs that we all share; the need for friendship, mutual relationship, love.

What is the social role of friend? What ‘responsibilities, behaviors, expectations and privileges’ are part of the social role of friend? What good things of life typically come with the role of friend? What is the range of ‘friend roles’ (e.g., best friend, oldest friend, new friend, going-out-to-the-movies-friend)? What is the wide range of ways that we typically make friends? Much to consider and reflect on. As always, we welcome your SRV-related thoughts, questions, comments and examples.

Marc Tumeinski

SRV in the News: Stripping of Valued Roles

This rather sensational story making the rounds on the internet these past few days is useful for highlighting several SRV-related issues. As Wolfensberger posthumously points out in the latest issue of the SRV journal (December 2011), one devalued class of people may be subjected to the same particular wound. In the case of the article above, the wound is the stripping of the home ownership role from working and middle-class Americans so as to make people virtually homeless overnight. Since the housing crash of 2008, millions of Americans have been stripped of the highly valued role of home owner and have found themselves pushed into other more devalued roles, such as public housing resident, homeless person, or even the role of “squatter”. The title of this article from the Los Angeles times aptly describes the situation for many: “Squatters say foreclosed homes beat homeless shelters”

For more on the systematic stripping of roles, along with many other fascinating articles, see the latest issue of the SRV Journal.

Steve Tiffany

Posted on January 24, 2012 at 10:23 pm by stevetiff · Permalink · 4 Comments
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: , , , , , ,

SRV In the News: Disabled inmates denied crucial access, judge says

This article from the San Francisco Chronicle, details the trouble that inmates of county jails in California have had in gaining access to basic aids for their physical impairments. According to the district judge interviewed in the article, prisoners have been denied access to canes, wheelchairs, sign language interpreters and telephone-assistance devices. The judge claims that prisoners “crawled or limped in pain to hearings and meetings in county jails”.

Marc has previously posted on the theme of prisons (here and here), so I will only briefly touch on some of the issues in this article.

Firstly, it appears that because of their devalued status, the inmates of county jails in California receive abusive treatment from jail officials. This touches on the issue of heightened vulnerability that I’ve written about several times (including here). While being a prisoner or having physical impairments are by themselves devaluing, both conditions together leaves one even more susceptible to wounding and devaluation.

Secondly, being at a heightened vulnerability for wounding and devaluation places one dangerously at risk of falling into a negative role circularity, a phenomenon discussed in the theme of SRV, referred to as “The Power of Role Expectancies and Role Circularity in Deviancy-Making and Deviancy-Unmaking” (Wolfensberger, 1998). Here we can already see the slide into devalued roles such as criminal, prison inmate, and disabled person. Along with a slide into devalued roles, prison is also a place where most of one’s previous valued roles can be stripped (i.e. role destruction), making role descent (as opposed to role ascent) even more likely.

Below are several other stories that highlight the vulnerability of disabled prisoners.

From Australia: Disabled man in jail isolation

From British Columbia: Justice system struggles to deal with fetal alcohol disorder

From Oregon: State sued over prisoner’s death

Steve Tiffany

Posted on January 23, 2012 at 7:29 pm by stevetiff · Permalink · 3 Comments
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: , , , , , , ,