In this blog, I will write about items relevant to Social Role Valorization, a set of ideas developed by Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger, research professor at Syracuse University (NY, US).
The basic premise of SRV is that people are much more likely to experience the “good things in life” (Wolfensberger, Thomas, & Caruso, 1996) if they hold valued social roles than if they do not. Therefore, the major goal of SRV is to create or support socially valued roles for people in their society, because if a person holds valued social roles, that person is highly likely to receive from society those good things in life that are available to that society, and that can be conveyed by it, or at least the opportunities for obtaining these. (Osburn, J. (2006). An overview of Social Role Valorization theory. The SRV Journal, 1(1), 4-13.)
Most people interested in SRV are concerned about people who are societally devalued, who are disenfranchised from society because of intellectual impairment, mental disorder, poverty, homelessness, autism, age (elders), physical impairment, or learning impairment (children & adults).
I work for the SRV Implementation Project (MA, US), providing training to human service workers and other interested people on SRV, and editing The SRV Journal.
We welcome your comments and online discussion.