The contemporary dangers of restraint use on societally devalued children and adults

I ran across two fairly recent articles (here and here) and reports (here and here) which speak to the human service use of restraints and the heightened vulnerability of societally devalued children and adults. Restraints can be physical, mechanical, and/or chemical, and are often used in conjunction with ‘seclusion.’

One of the dangerous patterns reported in these articles is that parents are often not told about the use of restraints on their child, and relatedly that the most basic statistics on restraint use are not (made) available to the public. This is another sad illustration of the lesson which Dr. Wolfensberger so often taught, that violence is often hidden away, covered up, disguised or made to seem positive (detoxification), and/or lied about (deception). For more on this issue, check this website.

As often happens in such reporting, both articles mention the specter and the prevalence of violence carried out by human service recipients, but little attention or none is paid to violence carried out by staff, the reality of structural violence (here and here), the reality of life-long wounding and devaluation which may drive a human service recipient toward violence (as is taught in Social Role Valorization), and so on.

This article on restraint use is available on our SRVIP website. A group in Ontario, Canada called Citizens Against Restraint (here and here) also has relevant information on this human service practice. Many members of Citizens Against Restraint are informed by Social Role Valorization (SRV).

Related to this human service practice of restraint, Social Role Valorization teaches us, among other things, to pay attention to:

• the reality and processes of social and societal devaluation

• heightened vulnerability

• dehumanization

• the devalued role of menace

• distantiation, segregation and congregation

• deathmaking

• the mindsets and expectations of staff and family, etc.

I have only touched on a few points from SRV relevant to the all-too-common contemporary practice of restraints in human services. Much more study of SRV, and application of its ideas, is warranted.

Marc Tumeinski

Citizen Advocacy website

I saw this fairly new Citizen Advocacy website recently. Dr. Wolfensberger developed Citizen Advocacy. I believe that students and practitioners of SRV have much to learn from Citizen Advocacy, and vice versa.

Marc Tumeinski

Communicating the valued social role of student … or not?!

Social Role Valorization (SRV) and PASSING teach us that social roles (valued or devalued) can be communicated to observers, as well as to role incumbents themselves, through such channels as:

• setting

• activity, schedule, routine, time use

• personal presentation and appearance

• language use and other miscellaneous imagery

• social juxtapositions, associations and grouping with other people

(Read more about this on pp. 64-69 of the 3rd rev. ed. of the SRV monograph by Wolfensberger).

I want to focus on the role communicator of social juxtapositions, associations and groupings with other people. The other people that someone associates with, or is associated with, give us a clue as to what role that person is in. Note that it also matters what social roles these other people are in (cf. PASSING, 2007, R1252 Server-Recipient Image Match).

Think about the role of student for example. The role communicators include setting (schools, classrooms, lunch room, gym, etc.), activities (reading, group work, homework, projects, going to class, having lunch, hanging out with your friends between classes or at lunch, waiting for the bus or a ride, etc.), timing (5 days a week, only part of the year, shorter day depending on student age, etc.), language use (student, text, homework, assignments, rubric, etc.).

What about social juxtapositions? Students typically spend time primarily with other students and with teachers. Now, what if we add in armed police officers to that mix of social juxtapositions–as a growing number of schools in the US are doing? At the very least, we are creating a tension in the minds of perceivers: wait a minute, are these students, or menaces, or ‘delinquents’ or criminals or potential criminals? How does a change like this likely shape the mindsets and expectations of teachers, of fellow students, of visitors to the school?

A practice such as this raises other questions as well, but my intent was to focus on one perspective which SRV and role theory can bring to this issue.

Marc Tumeinski

article: ‘Retirees opting for all-ages housing communities’

The article ‘Retirees opting for all-ages housing communities‘ (and this 2010 article as well) could be the basis for an interesting exercise for a study group, university or college class, staff training, etc. Such an exercise from a Social Role Valorization (SRV) perspective might profitably include a discussion of the contemporary heightened vulnerability of elders in different cultures; the wounds of distantiation, segregation, congregation; the elements of personal social integration and valued social and societal participation; the theme of grouping in SRV; programmatic and non-programmatic elements; the culturally valued analog; etc.

announcing the publication of a revised edition of The Limitations of the Law by W. Wolfensberger

Valor Press is pleased to announce

A revised and expanded edition of Wolf Wolfensberger’s classic work 

The Limitations of the Law In Human Services (rev. ed.) 

Dr. Wolfensberger said, right at the beginning of the original monograph, “Law is one of mankind’s noblest social institutions” – an attribute he has retained in this updated and expanded version. His intention, both then and when the present text was completed just prior to his death on February 27, 2011, is clearly to ensure a proper understanding of the role and “vast potential of the law.” (Orville Endicott, from his foreword)

Author: Wolf Wolfensberger PhD, 1934-2011

Softcover: 83 pages

Publisher: Valor Press (Plantagenet ON – Canada)

Language: English

ISBN: 978-0-9868040-6-9

Copyright ©: 2013 by the Valor Institute

Product Dimensions: 22 x 16 x 0.5 cm

Available: March 2013

Price: 25$ cdn + shipping & handling

Special hardcover edition: 58$ cdn + S & H

Valor Press 

Valor Institute

200 du Comté Road,

P.O. Box 110

Plantagenet, Ontario K0B 1L0

1.613.673.3583

www.instvalor.ca

or write to Sylvie Duchesne at sduchesne@instvalor.ca

About the book (from the Preface)

Since the publication of the first edition, Dr. Wolfensberger developed extensive material and taught widely on the limits of a law- and legal rights-based approach to addressing human needs. His teaching came to emphasize more and more that the foundations for an adaptive, or even merely a functional, service system were in the minds, hearts, and values of the members of a society; and that so often, recourse to the law was either an attempt to bypass the long and difficult work of persuading the citizenry to adopt certain attitudes and values, or a de facto declaration that such an attempt at persuasion would fail. However, this does not mean that recourse to the law is to be totally rejected, only that its limitations must be understood, and it must be put and kept in its proper place.

This version has been expanded from the original 24 page version to 83 pages.

About Wolf Wolfensberger (1934-2011)

World renowned human service reformer, Professor Wolfensberger (Syracuse University) was involved in the development and dissemination of the principle of normalization and the originator of the program evaluation tools PASS 3 and PASSING, and of a number of service approaches that include SRV and Citizen Advocacy.

This book includes the following chapters 

FOREWORD Orville Endicott

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND AND SOCIETAL CONTEXT

INHERENT LIMITATIONS IN LAW ITSELF

 Laws Are Ideological

 Law is More Allied to and Productive of Order Than Justice

 Law Cannot Solve Problems of Human Relationship

 Social Problems Can Rarely Be Solved by Law Alone

 The Effectiveness of Legal and Other Technical Safeguards is Very Limited

 The Irresolvable Conflict Between Clarity and Specificity of Law, and Flexibility in Its Implementation

LIMITATIONS OF LITIGATION AS A WAY TO SOLVE SERVICE PROBLEMS AND/OR ACHIEVE SERVICE OR ADVOCACY GOALS

 Problems With Relying on Litigative Approaches

 The Power of Litigative Victories is Very Limited

 Conditions Under Which Recourse to the Law for Service and Advocacy Problems Might be Justified

LIMITATIONS OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION, AND OF LAWYERS

 The Tendency to Idolize the Law

 Lawyers Tend to Be Conservative and Oriented to Privilege

 Like the Law Itself, Lawyers Tend to Be Oriented More Towards Order Than Justice

 Lawyers Tend to Be Oriented to Specific Cases, Not Systemic Issues

 Lawyers Tend to See Themselves as Mere Technicians

 Lawyers Tend to Be Oriented More Towards Winning Than Towards Problem-Solving, or Even Truth

 Lawyers Can Be Hard for Non-Lawyers to Deal With

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

REFERENCES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SUBJECT INDEX

to purchase, please contact:

Valor Press 

Valor Institute

200 du Comté Road,

P.O. Box 110

Plantagenet, Ontario K0B 1L0

1.613.673.3583

www.instvalor.ca

or write to Sylvie Duchesne at sduchesne@instvalor.ca

announcing the publication of an expanded edition of the SRV monograph

Valor Press is pleased to announce:

A Brief Introduction to Social Role Valorization: 

A high-order concept for addressing the plight of societally devalued people, and for structuring human services 

4th expanded edition

by Wolf Wolfensberger, Ph.D.

A long-held rationale of those of us who teach SRV Theory is that the material helps students to see the world from the perspectives of those who receive services and supports, rather than the service provider. Time and again, we hear students describe this as the single most important aspect of taking an SRV theory course. They talk about how they now have new, or different, eyes with which to see and understand their world. Many describe the realization that they first had to change in order for them to address the issues and problems of the people they were assigned to teach or help. When they changed their perceptions of another person, they then changed their expectations of this person, along with their ideas of what the person actually needs and how to effectively address these needs (from the foreword by Zana Marie Lutfyyia PhD and Thomas Neuville, PhD).

Author: Wolf Wolfensberger PhD, 1934-2011

Publisher: Valor Press (Plantagenet ON – Canada)

Language: English

ISBN: 978-0-9868040-7-6

Copyright ©: 2013, Valor Press

Product Dimensions: 15 x 22 x 2 cm

Available: May 2013

Price: 30$ cdn + shipping & handling

Special Hardcover edition: 65$ + S & H

About the book (from the Preface)

“…in order for people to be treated well by others, it is very important that they be seen as occupying valued roles, because otherwise, things are apt to go ill with them. Further, the greater the number of valued roles a person, group or class occupies, or the more valued the roles that such a party occupies, the more likely it is that the party will be accorded those good things of life that others are in a position to accord, or to withhold.

Accordingly, the most recent formal definition of SRV is “the application of what science has to tell us about the defense or upgrading of the socially-perceived value of people’s roles.” Another way to put it is that SRV is a systematic effort to extract empirical knowledge that can be applied in service of the valuation of people’s roles, so that they are more likely to have access to the good life, or the good things of life. Any action that accords with role-defense or role-upgrading can be said to be role-valorizing” (p. 81).

This version has been expanded from the original 139 page version to 275 pages.

About Wolf Wolfensberger (1934-2011)

World renowned human service reformer, Professor Wolfensberger (Syracuse University) was involved in the development and dissemination of the principle of normalization and the originator of the program evaluation tools PASS 3 and PASSING, and of a number of service approaches that include SRV and Citizen Advocacy.

This book includes the following chapters 

EDITOR’S NOTE

FOREWORD

PART 1: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL ROLE VALORIZATION: A HIGH-ORDER CONCEPT FOR ADDRESSING THE PLIGHT OF SOCIETALLY DEVALUED PEOPLE, AND FOR STRUCTURING HUMAN SERVICES

PART 2 : .. SOME OF THE UNIVERSAL “GOOD THINGS OF LIFE” WHICH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SOCIAL ROLE VALORIZATION CAN BE EXPECTED TO MAKE MORE ACCESSIBLE TO DEVALUED PEOPLE

PART 3: AN “IF THIS, THEN THAT” FORMULATION OF DECISIONS RELATED TO SOCIAL ROLE VALORIZATION AS A BETTER WAY OF INTERPRETING IT TO PEOPLE

PART 4: PUBLICATIONS OF WOLF WOLFENSBERGER ON NORMALIZATION AND SOCIAL ROLE VALORIZATION (SRV), IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

to purchase, contact:

Valor Press 

Valor Institute

200 du Comté Road, P.O. Box 110

Plantagenet, Ontario K0B 1L0

1.613.673.3583

www.instvalor.ca

or write to Sylvie Duchesne at sduchesne@instvalor.ca

the wealth of concrete SRV implementation strategies

The principles of Social Role Valorization (SRV) contain a wealth of practical and highly concrete implementation strategies, both broad and deep, that can be carried out by individuals, groups or on the societal level. No helping approach, no social movement, no human service program will be able, either on its own or in combination, to completely stop the processes of societal devaluation and wounding or to help every devalued person or group. Still, SRV lays out a number of relevant ways to concretely address the impacts of societal devaluation in the lives of real people and real groups.

Below, I offer just a few examples, but this is by no means an exhaustive list, and I encourage others to share further ideas and examples.

• the broad framework of supporting image enhancement and competency enhancement toward a particular valued social role; the basic dual structure of image and competency enhancement can be easily explained to servers, and can open the door to imagining many relevant and potent possibilities for societally devalued people, as well as many, many concrete strategies

• The guidelines for applying SRV-relevant measures, as briefly laid out in the 3rd (rev.) edition of the SRV monograph authored by Wolfensberger (pp. 82-94):
* becoming familiar with the wounding experiences or ‘wounds’ of a societally devalued individual or group
* knowing the risk factors for the particular individual or group
* making an inventory of the current roles (socially valued and devalued) of the person or group
* analyzing the societal standing of the person or group
* identifying the current or desired social roles that one wants to valorize or change (valorize currently held positive roles, avoid entry into devalued roles, facilitate entry into new valued roles, regain previously-held valued roles, get a person or group out of devalued roles, reduce the negativity of current devalued roles, exchange current devalued roles for less devalued ones, etc.)

These 5 steps can be implemented iteratively, as a person or group’s situation and/or societal status change.

• Identify and use the various role communicators to help a person or group gain or internalize a new valued social role, and/or to help a person or group get out of a societally devalued role, or to at least minimize the obvious negativity of the devalued role (3rd. rev. edition of the SRV monograph, pp. 64-69):
* setting(s): where does the person/group spend time? how much time? which days of the week? which times of day? etc.
* juxtapositions and relationships with other people: who does the person/group spend time with? how much time? etc.
* activities, routines: what does the person/group do? how does the person/group spend time? etc.
* what is the personal appearance of the person/group (e.g., including clothes, shoes, makeup, jewelry, personal possessions, speech patterns, hairstyle, cleanliness, manners, tone and volume of voice, mannerisms, etc., etc.)?
* language used to and about people (by servers, by family, by members of the public, etc.)
* language used about and by a service organization, program, etc.
* funding sources and funding appeals

Note that these communicators can be analyzed, addressed (and implemented) separately but should also be looked at as a whole (e.g., what is the overall effect of these communicators on the person or group’s social role?)

• the SRV theme of personal social integration, and valued social and societal participation (PSI/VSP), as taught in SRV workshops, provides a concrete, comprehensive framework for service decisions and strategies. PSI/VSP calls for 1) valued participation with 2) valued people in 3) valued activities that take place in 4) valued settings. Even this simple 4-part matrix would be a helpful tool for making decisions and taking action on behalf of a societally devalued person or group. However, leadership-level SRV workshops go even further into detail in breaking these 4 elements down into a large number of increasingly more concrete options and considerations.

• The PASSING tool authored by Wolfensberger and Thomas (2007) provides a host of concrete frameworks and strategies for implementing SRV, including for example:

* the 42 PASSING ratings: each individual rating has multiple implications for implementing SRV
* the top level division of the 42 ratings into image (1) and competency (2) enhancement ratings (as discussed above)
* the next level division into settings (1), groupings (2), activities (3) and miscellaneous (4) is another helpful framework for taking action on behalf of an individual or group
* the five programmatic areas of image projection, integrativeness, intensity, felicity, and relevance provide another useful heuristic for crafting SRV-relevant implementation strategies and approaches (NB: this is one of the skills taught at PASSING workshops

Again, I have essentially just listed out only a few of the ways that SRV can provide concrete guidance for those trying to help societally devalued persons or groups to gain greater access to the ‘good things of life’ via valued social roles. Many other ways could be listed, and much more detail could be provided (and is provided in leadership level SRV and PASSING workshops).

The question seems to me to be one of whether servers and/or organizations are willing to do the hard work of trying to implement these steps, day in and day out, not whether SRV is concrete enough vis-a-vis implementation. The tools and strategies are there if a server or organization wants to pick them up and use them.

Marc Tumeinski

new article: ‘What would be better? Social Role Valorization and the development of ministry to persons affected by disability

With Dr. Jeff McNair from CalBaptist University, I recently co-wrote an article which was published in the inaugural issue of The Journal of the Christian Institute on Disability. Dr. McNair has attended SRV and is familiar with Dr. Wolfensberger’s work.

The article citation is

The Journal of the Christian Institute on Disability, 1(1), 11-22 (2012).

The abstract is

Marc Tumeinski

Globe and Mail news item: when prison feels like home

Thanks to Bill Forman for sharing this news item from the Globe & Mail. The brief anecdote is an example of being socialized into the devalued role of prisoner, so that the role eventually becomes internalized (Wolfensberger, SRV monograph, 2004, p. 27). This example touches on many elements of role theory, such as the power of expectations, role cues, role activities, etc. In this case, this person chose a devalued role that typically is imposed (Wolfensberger, SRV monograph, 2004, pp. 28-29), which again underscores the power of social roles, valued and devalued.

Marc Tumeinski

Devalued role of object

The 18 February 2013 issue of Time magazine had a photo of the actor John Hawkes who starred in The Sessions, playing a man in an iron lung (in real life, the poet and journalist Mark O’Brien). The photo was accompanied by a quote from Hawkes: “Mark O’Brien used to say that disabled people are invisible to able bodied people … In between takes, I’d stay on a gurney, and crew members would set sandwiches and wardrobe people would lay coats on me … I got some idea of what it’s like to be thought of as furniture.”

In Social Role Valorization language: What can we learn from this quote about the devalued role of object, and of the negative treatment which so often flows from negative perception of societally devalued people? What gets in the way of seeing another person as a person, of interpersonal identification?

Marc Tumeinski

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