If you haven’t gotten your hands on it yet, I recommend reading the 2009 book from Wolfensberger:
Wolf Wolfensberger. Observing, Recording and Addressing Personal Physical Appearance by Means of the APPEAR Tool. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Training Institute for Human Service Planning, Leadership and Change Agentry; Plantagenet, ON: l’Institut Valor Institute.
For those of you familiar with the PASSING manual, this new book is set up to be used as an assessment tool, complete with checklists. My sense is that it will be helpful as an assessment tool but also as a way of learning more about SRV, by really focusing in on personal presentation and imagery issues. Watch the SRV Journal for a review of the book but in the meantime, read it yourself.
Abbreviated Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Rational for Making Personal Appearance Audits, Especially for Persons at Risk of Social Devaluation
The Impact of Personal Appearance on Perceivers and the Perceived
The Typical Appearance Problems of Societally Devalued People
Major Strategies for the Enhancement of Personal Appearance
Discovering, or Determining, Appearance Features of a Person That Could Be Improved
Preliminary Considerations to Know and Review Before Selecting an Action Measure
Deciding Which Specific Action Measures to Pursue
Who Might Attend to a Person’s Appearance?
The Debate Over Whether Efforts Should Be Made at All to Improve the Appearance of Impaired or Otherwise Societally Devalued People
Limitations of the APPEAR Recording Form and Checklist
References
Instructions for Use of the APPEAR Recording Form and Checklist
Identifying and Background Information on the Person Whose Appearance is Being Audited
The APPEAR Checklist Items for Observing and Recording Personal Physical Features
I. Head
II. Body
III. Global Appearance Characteristics
IV. Attire and Accessories
V. Any Other Relevant Observations That Did Not Emerge Sufficiently in the Above Categories
Actions Recommended/To Be Taken
About the Author
Personal appearance is certainly the most immediate, and often also one of the most powerful, influences on how a person will be perceived and interpreted by others, and in turn, on how others will respond to and treat the person. Personal appearance is also one of the domains of social imagery, which is a big component of Social Role Valorization (SRV): the more observers positively value a person’s appearance, the more likely they are to afford those person opportunities to fill valued roles, and thereby access to the good things in life. Unfortunately, the appearance of many members of many societally marginal or devalued classes is far from enhancing, and increases the risk that bad things get done to them, or that good things are withheld from them.
This 2009 book explains all this. APPEAR is an acronym for A Personal Physical Appearance Evaluation And Record. It explains the many components of personal appearance, and the ways in which these features can be changed for better or worse. It also includes a very detailed checklist, called the APPEAR tool, which identifies over 200 separate elements of personal physical appearance, so that one can review a person’s appearance features from head to toe, noting which are positive, which are neutral, which are negative–all this with a view to perhaps trying to improve selected aspects of appearance about which something can actually be done. The book also explains how such an appearance review, or appearance “audit”, would be done.
The book contains a sample APPEAR checklist at the back, but also comes with three separate free checklist booklets ready for use in conducting an individual appearance audit.
For those who would like to purchase the book APPEAR and the Check Lists, please note that the Valor Press are disributors for these publications.
Les Presses Valor Presses
200, rue du Comté Road, c.p. /P.O. Box 110
Plantagenet, Ontario
Canada
K0B 1L0
T. 613.673-3583
F. 613.673-1419
They can be purchased on line:
http://www.valorinstitute.ca