Concurrent Session:
The Relative Potentialities and Limitations of Work vs Avocational Roles

The Relative Potentialities and Limitations of Work vs Avocational Roles

SRV has action implementations in all of the various domains of a person’s life: home, work; citizenship; education and personal development, faith, etc. With the closure of institutions and other congregated and segregated arrangements, a first obvious choice was a real home of one’s own, real work, and education with all the desirable qualities and features that implies; what SRV calls a ‘Culturally Valued Analogue’ (CVA).  Then, there is the question of ‘everything else’ that one might do with one’s time to make life rich and fulfilling and keep a person growing.  Inspired by the work of John McKnight and others, PASC, initially solely a supported employment agency, expanded its mandate so as to support people to identify personal interests and find or develop activities, roles and associations in community life based on those interests.  This presentation will offer reflections on the experiences of supporting people at PASC, comparing the relative potentialities and limits of employment to those of the various avocational roles that people acquired. They will also offer recommendations for others considering or already engaged in supporting disabled or otherwise devalued persons in this regard.  

Presenters

Sue Webber​

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Sue Webber is the People and Culture Coordinator at Progressive Alternatives Society of Calgary (PASC). Sue has been learning about SRV since she started with PASC over 20 years ago. She uses a values-based lens to help the organization work towards good lives for people with disabilities. She is also a founding member of the Alberta Safeguards Foundation, a group focused on SRV and other Wolfensberger’s work. ​

Bill Forman

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Bill Forman retired five years ago from a career of over 40 years that focused primarily on persons with developmental disabilities.  During these years he was a teacher, adult educator, community developer, advocate and, finally, Executive Director of Progressive Alternatives Society of Calgary (PASC), an agency founded on Normalization and, later, Social Role Valorization. He is a founding member of the Alberta Safeguards Foundation, an organization  focused on SRV and other Wolfensberger’s teachings.