Sharing Social Role Valorization with Indian Professionals

“When in doubt, go higher.” -- Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger

This was not advice about avoiding floods or choosing a hiking path. It was advice about our thinking.  When we are working with an idea, or a thought, or a phenomenon, or a struggle, we must strive to push our thinking to a higher level – to address universals rather than individual particularities. This was a great gift frequently offered by Dr. Wolfensberger to those he mentored and taught over his many years of change agentry around the plight of and possibilities for people with disabilities.  It has come into my mind many times this summer as we prepare to gather together a group of leaders in India to discuss, learn about, and push our own thinking about crafting a positive future by, with and for people with disability in India.

In just a few short weeks, a team from 3 countries will be introducing the core ideas of Social Role Valorization to India for the first time. A group or 40 or so leaders from across India will meet for three days to immerse themselves in the foundational ideas that have been so important to laying the groundwork for moving away from segregation and devaluation, and towards integration and full lives. In our preparations, the core trainers have been discussing SRV examples to illustrate the “big ideas”, such as the culturally valued analogue, role circularity, and the conservatism corollary.  Heady ideas, exciting, and ones that fit fairly “high” on the hierarchy of universals. They are also ones that we can easily illustrate and bring to life for Indian people from our years of work in the US, Australia, and the Republic of Moldova, respectively. In doing so, we risk the response earned by missing the nuances of Indian culture and society which will cause people to respond with “not here in India”. On the other hand, we can tailor our presentations to be specific only to India, and in doing so no doubt get it wrong in truly understanding what we are seeing and, perhaps “shoehorning” Indian experience into our own set of principles.

“Go Up”, we hear.  In this context, I think it means two things:  “Trust the Ideas”: Remember that the ideas we are teaching within Social Role Valorization are based on universal societal principles.  They matter and they apply wherever human beings live in community.  “Trust the People”: People have the capacity to interpret ideas, generalize them, adapt them and then make them specific to their own context when it makes sense to do so.  I look forward to what will be a potent mix of strong ideas, personalized illustrations, adaptations, and, I essence, all taking a leap of faith together. People matter, ideas matter, and, when we get stuck, we will “go up”.