ISRVA ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Seventh Annual Report December 2023
The purpose of the International Social Role Valorization Association is
2023 was our busiest and best year so far. Many of our members continued to teach, implement, and conduct assessments with SRV training occurring in several countries. New leaders are being recognized such as occurred at the recent International SRV Distance Conference. With the end of COVID restrictions, in person events have made a come-back, but many have also retained online events and blended events are also popular. In 2023, ISRVA organised 2 conferences that were well attended., Valor Press produced a new SRV relevant book, and we continued our collaboration with the Wolfensberger collection at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC).
SRV International Conference Distance Conference – February 22 to 24, 2023
Under the leadership of Betsy Neuville, Pamela Seetoo and Marc Tumeinski, the Conference Committee put together an exciting program of six keynote speeches and 27 breakout sessions under the theme of SRV in the World with a new generation of speakers and presenters. Held fully online, the conference offered 33 plenary sessions, both live and a few recorded presentations, and opportunities to connect and network with each other, as well as attend Expo sites. Over 300 1|Page
ISRVA ANNUAL REPORT 2023 people registered for the conference, and the Keynote Addresses are available in video form on our Members Only website. The conference topics for learning and exploration included sessions related to: • Teaching & Implementing SRV & PASSING • 10 SRV Themes Connect to 42 PASSING Ratings • Model Coherency Evaluation & Design • The Universality of Devaluation Across Cultures, Domains & Service Forms • Cultural Perspectives on Societally Valued Roles and The Good Things of Life • Citizen Advocacy
The Keynote Speakers were:
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Dr. Nidhi Singhal (IN) and Geeta Mondol (IN) : Right Time, Right Place: Social Role Valorization in the Indian Context Cecile Sullivan Elder (AU): What Belonging Means to Australian Families Dr. Marc Tumeinski (US): The Newest Formulation of Model Coherency Erica Baker Tinsley (CA): All Roads Lead Back to SRV: Lessons Learned from Teaching SRV to College Students Jack Vermeulen (NL) and Dr. Sergiu Toma (MD) – Tending the Fires: Keeping SRV Ideas Burning Miriam Kaye (CA): The Challenge of “Non-Programmatic” Issues in Service Leadership
The video recordings of each Keynote are available on the “Members Only” section of the website. A total of 308 registrants and 263 people attended over the course of the three-days. Participants were from six countries (United States, Canada, Netherlands, Australia, India, United Kingdom), and four continents (North America, Asia, Oceania, and Europe). The conference generated $11, 678 in expenses and $23,032 in income. We were able to offer 42 full and partial scholarships to members and there are funds remaining to plan and conduct future activities and events. Participants were overwhelmingly positive:
“The online format provided more people with the opportunity to attend who might not have otherwise been able to do so.”
“ I thought the event was well organized and easy to navigate.”
“Appreciated the international aspect of the conference and the quality of the speakers.” 2|Page
ISRVA ANNUAL REPORT 2023 “I loved the virtual experience; I believe it was organized very well given the technology and was easy to navigate. I also liked the various topics covered, provided a wide range. I also appreciate the ability to watch the recordings due to having concurrent sessions.”
“Being able to hear different viewpoints and perspectives from different countries at the click of a mouse. Getting access to such a knowledge base was a blessing and immense learning. “
“It was so well organized, and I could feel that there was a lot of energy and intention behind ensuring the participants felt as though we were at an inperson conference. There was a wide array of speakers on vast topics. The beauty of this online format is it allows us to have a chance to listen to all the speakers…because it was so hard to choose!”
“I did not have to pay expensive travel fares and accommodation to attend. I can watch the recordings of sessions that I couldn’t view live – I was able to learn so much from many people doing their best for people who are devalued – I was inspired by and encouraged by those present and those presenting to deepen my understanding of SRV and to commit to application – everyone is so lovely, thirsty for more knowledge and keen to help other grow in our SRV journey.”
Festschrift in Honor of Dr Wolfensberger
“Wolf Wolfensberger: The Influence of the Person and his Ideas Today.”
In collaboration with the Wolfensberger Collection at University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) McGoogan Library, we held a Festschrift in honor of Dr. Wolfensberger’s academic contributions The event brought together colleagues from far and wide from May 12th to 14th 2023 at UNMC in Omaha, Nebraska. The organizing committee included Darby Kurtz, Joan Wolfensberger, Margaret Wolfensberger Sager, Caroline Granger, Susan Thomas, Betsy Neuville, John Murphy, Marc Tumeinski, Robert Flynn, Guy Caruso and Raymond Lemay. A total of 12 chapters were presented. Most of the chapters were video recorded and are available on the ISRVA YouTube Channel. The proceedings of the Festschrift were published by Valor Press (see information below.
Membership
Membership is essential and ISRVA is able to operate because of the support of our membership, who make financial contributions to meet our mutual goals of strengthening the global SRV community.
2023 membership consists of 133 organizational and individual members from 12 countries and 4 continents, at varying levels of contribution. Countries represented 3|Page
ISRVA ANNUAL REPORT 2023 include Australia, Canada, France, India, Ireland, the Netherlands, Moldova, Germany, New Zealand, Pakistan, and the USA. We invite readers of this Annual Report to join ISRVA for 2024 to support the work of the International Social Role Valorization Association (ISRVA). This past year 26 organizations made a sustaining, supporting, or contributing pledge to this work. Thank you to all members for the support – SRV dissemination continues to be a collective effort. Because of the efforts put towards two major events this year, less effort towards membership recruitment is evident by lower membership numbers this year.
Financial Position
During this current year we have had expenses of $20,483 and revenues of $25,162. 100% of our revenue is from membership and conference fees. On December 31, 2023, our bank balance was $106,246, which includes $8,500 held in reserve as seed money for the next (8TH) International SRV Conference. Our expenses were directed towards maintenance of the websites, conference costs, support for the Wolfensberger archives, and administrative costs. We did not award a research grant in 2023.
Wolf Wolfensberger Website
ISRVA hosts a legacy website to Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger. This website, www.wolfwolfensberger.com, was moved to the WordPress platform this past year. Data for 2023 is for five months, because of the platform change.
Webpage activity
2021
2022
Visitors Sessions
8,029 10,118
8,119 10,297
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Five months of 2023 2,800 6,300
ISRVA ANNUAL REPORT 2023 Social Role Valorization Website The current website which was launched in mid-2019 has demonstrated a dramatic increase in traffic. Last year, the website had over 269,000 visitors making 1,786,000 visits to the website, more than double the numbers for 2022. Some of the interesting statistics include: Visits to SRV website
YEAR Online Visitors Online Visits
Country
USA Australia Canada Hong Kong China United Kingdom Singapore Germany India Russian Federation France Ireland
2020 22,182
Number of Visitors and Visits
2022 108,595 902,707
2022
5,388 3,733 2,245 2,145 1,735 1,607 1,510 1,225 818 900
2023 269,837 1,786,161
2023
20,272 1981 2,431 365 3,147 2,268 1,227 2,803 3,808 1,187 2,110 1,019
ISRVA continues to add French content to www.AIVRS.ca. Our francophone web site can be accessed by selecting the website link: www.valorisationdesrolessociaux.com
Social Media
ISRVA manages two Facebook groups. One provides a forum for English-speaking SRV practitioners from around the world. The purpose of this group is for the international community of Social Role Valorization leaders, teachers, students, practitioners, and researchers to share our work, look for connections, learn about the events and activities happening worldwide, and assist each other in SRV use in a welcoming, supportive manner. The ISRVA Facebook group has as of the writing of this report 279 members (174 in 2020) and is located at https://www.facebook.com/groups/280067349420572/.
The second group is a Francophone Facebook Group that has 30 members and can be found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/614131435753569. 5|Page
ISRVA ANNUAL REPORT 2023 We participate in two other social media groups via Facebook. S.R.V. (Social Role Valorization)] has 728 members can be found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/177849802342830 “Social Role Valorization” has 1100 members and is located at https://www.facebook.com/groups/8623212156
You can join these private Facebook groups by visiting the URLs listed above, and requesting admission to one, several, or all of the groups.
YouTube channel
2023 Research Grant
ISRVA launched a simple to use YouTube channel in November of 2019. It can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/c/ISRVA. We currently have 218 subscribers and 52 videos. ISRVA members were relied upon for recommendations of videos to include, and Guy Caruso, Erica Tinsley-Baker and Betsy Neuville are leading efforts to curate and categorize videos by SRV theme.
No research grants were awarded in 2023. The grants are still available in 2024 and the grant application process and description are available at https://socialrolevalorization.com/international-srv-association/grant-opportunities/.
The Institute for Applied SRV (IAS)
Our plan to establish an "Institute for Applied Social Role Valorization" continues to evolve. Such an institute is seen as a major way to develop and increase the capacity of individual and organizational service providers to apply SRV proficiently and fully on behalf of their service recipients. Our planning of the proposed institute isa multi-step process, guided generally by Wolfensberger's "Model Coherency Design," which entails an assessment of its feasibility at several points along the way. Last July, the final feasibility assessment included potential users' frank consideration of their likely participation in an institute operationalized according to our fairly advanced-stage description of its offerings and the broad costs to them. Their responses were unanimously positive that the described institute was a good idea, but for many the financial investment and time commitment were significant deterrents. We determined that, overall, the project needed another look, and now we propose a course on SRV implementation requiring a shorter time commitment and less expense. This new project is in final stages of development. Stay tuned! 6|Page
ISRVA ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Valor Press and one new (2023) Book VALOR Press has recently published the proceedings of the Wolfensberger Festschrift held in May 2024. The book is over 400 pages, co-editors Ray Lemay, Guy Caruso, and Susan Thomas, and includes 12 chapters by wellknown colleagues and friends of Dr. Wolfensberger.
Chapter titles and authors. 1- A Brief Biographical Sketch of Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger – Susan Thomas. 2- A Tracing of the Timelines of the Work of Wolf Wolfensberger – Susan Thomas. 3- There Was No Place Like Nebraska: Wolf Wolfensberger and the Beginning of Community-Based Services – Eric A. Evans, Ph.D. 4- Changing a country: Wolf Wolfensberger and the Principle of Normalization in Canada – Zana Lutfiyya, Ph.D. 5- The Syracuse University Training Institute for Human Service Planning, Leadership, and Change Agentry (TI) During the Years 1973 to 2011 – Joe Osburn. 6- The Training Institute's Pennsylvania Evaluation Project – Joe Osburn. 7- The Early Work and Teaching on Planning and Change Agentry, and What Became of It Susan Thomas, Raymond Lemay, and Guy Caruso, Ph.D. 8- Evolving Concepts of Service Quality: Normalization and Social Role Valorizations – John Armstrong 9- Wolf Wolfensberger’s Use of History – Thomas Malcomson, Ph.D. 10- The Prophetic Voice of Wolf Wolfensberger: His Faith in Light of His Teaching on Personalism and Deathmaking – Jo Massarelli 11- Wolf P. Wolfensberger Collection at UNMC McGoogan Health Sciences Library – Darby Kurtz. 12- The ongoing legacy of Wolf Wolfensberger: “But where are moral services to come from?” Marc Tumeinski, Ph.D. 13- Appendix : Wolfensberger publications
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ISRVA ANNUAL REPORT 2023 Wolfensberger Archives
The University of Nebraska Medical Center’s McGoogan Library was a key player in the sponsoring and organization of the May Wolfensberger Festschrift. Participants were able to view and sample the archival materials that make up the Collection. Darby Kurtz, Archivist and Public Historian, can be contacted at the Wolfensberger Archives for more information: dkurtz@unmc.edu
The Nebraska University Foundation is organizing a fundraising campaign to digitize some of the more important cassette recordings of Dr. Wolfensberger’s speeches, lectures and workshops. There are over 1,700 extant cassettes and each cassette costs about $38 to digitize. We have identified about 500 critical cassette recordings that should be preserved. ISRVA supports this initiative and will participate in the Foundation fundraising.
PASS/PASSING/CAPE Reports:
Guy Caruso is leading an initiative to collect and convert into a digital format all extant PASS/PASSING and CAPE (O’Brien and Wolfensberger – 1980- Citizen Advocacy Program Evaluation) reports. Betsy Neuville and Pam Seetoo are spearheading the digitalization process and organizing the reports.
ISRVA has been able to gather and have 40 PASS/PASSING and some Cape Reports (Citizen Advocacy evaluation reports) scanned through the hard work of the Keystone Institute. These will be sent to the Wolfensberger Archives, as well as a few that have been approved for public view and or redacted to be shared soon at https://socialrolevalorization.com/passing-sample-reports. In addition, there are reference material on PASSING at https://socialrolevalorization.com/passingreference-material/. If anyone has a PASS, PASSING, or CAPE report they want to save for posterity please contact Guy Caruso at guy@temple.edu.
SRV Study Sessions
Five successful SRV Study Sessions were held on Zoom, with available space filling almost immediately. For each event, two sessions have been offered at two different times to make it possible for people from widely different time zones to attend and we have had high participation from Oceania, Asia, Europe, and North America. Month January March
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Title Saving Life and Limb: An Advocate’s Journey in Medical Safeguarding Learning to Listen
Leaders Cathy Ludlum and Jo Massarelli (USA) David Yeiter (USA)
ISRVA ANNUAL REPORT 2023 May August
October
Lessons from SRV and Citizen Advocacy for Fostering Freely-Given Relationships. The Relevance of SRV in Issues of Gender and Caste in India Get in the Game: Using SRV to Create Authentic Sports Experiences
ISRVA Leadership
Tom Doody (USA) Raaj Mondol (India) Doug Utting (USA)
The ISRVA leadership group includes Jo Massarelli, Betsy Neuville, Andrew Oliver, Guy Caruso, Joe Osburn and Raymond Lemay. We generally meet monthly by videoconference, though we did meet for a weekend last August to further the planning of the Institute for Applied SRV.
A Brief History of ISRVA
After the Canberra International SRV conference in September 2011, there was some concern that SRV might not survive Dr. Wolfensberger’s recent passing (Feb 2011). A few of us (Betsy Neuville, Guy Caruso and Raymond Lemay) on our way back home from Canberra imagined that a permanent international structure should be established to provide long term institutional support – something like an international association. We then prepared a position paper elaborating the idea and presented it to the North American SRV Council (NASRVC), and, after a lengthy discussion, set up a committee to further develop the idea. From the outset, it was clear that though members of the NASRVC were actively involved in the development of this project, any new entity stemming from our work would be separate from the NASRVC.
The original committee included Jo Massarelli, Beth French (who has since passed away), Betsy Neuville, Joe Osburn, Guy Caruso, and Raymond Lemay. John Armstrong, a senior leader in Australia, was also quite helpful in the early going and participated in early discussions and quite graciously transferred to the association the socialrolevalorization.com website that he had developed and managed for years.
The committee met several times, including multiple day meetings in Worcester MA and Kingston ON, reached out with a survey and interviews to SRV groups and aficionados around the world, and reworked and transformed the original position paper into statement of purpose and description of activities – the latest version of which is available on the socialrolevalorization.com website. After much discussion and some procrastination, we decided to move forward and start the ISRVA with a membership drive.
A number of founding organizations were instrumental in moving this project forward. They include: Valor & Solutions, Plantagenet, Ontario, Canada 9|Page
ISRVA ANNUAL REPORT 2023 Valoris pour enfants et adultes de Prescott-Russell Valoris for Children and Adults in Ontario Canada Shriver Clinical Services, Wakefield, Massachusetts, United States Family Lives, Massachusetts USA Keystone Institute, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States Community Ventures in Living, Lafayette, Indiana, United States ISRVA website: www.socialrolevalorization.com, and visit its sister website: wolfwolfensberger.com. Despite the ongoing turbulence in the world, we continue to thrive. The long-term purpose is still alive as we find new ways of promoting “SRV development, education, assessment, and leadership to assist people and organizations to implement SRV concepts so that vulnerable people may have access to the good things of life.”
For the ISRVA,
Jo Massarelli, Betsy Neuville, Andrew Oliver, Joe Osburn, Guy Caruso and Raymond Lemay
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