Across the world, most valued people have some level of choice and voice in their lives, perhaps not about everything, but about many things. We make many daily decisions, express our opinions freely, and often have leeway to steer our lives in one direction or another, to take some risks, and to stretch ourselves. Somehow, typical people often feel licensed to control and manage people with disabilities. A quick study of oppressed and marginalized people shows without a doubt that the personal power of devalued people is often tamped down or even completely suppressed.

PASSING is for those who are interested in deepening their knowledge about the principles of Social Role Valorization. This workshop involves learning to use the PASSING assessment tool, which looks at the realities of Social Role Valorization in practice. It emphasizes the impact of services on the lives of the people being served and provides an opportunity to craft a vision of a good service and the foundation from which to design relevant and effective support, service, advocacy, and assess service quality.

Join us for two days of learning, discovery, and design, as we explore visual and inclusive processes of envisioning the future, and design ways to move forward, and create change. This course is intended to develop awareness in using Social Role Valorization as a strong foundation and using PATH and Personal Futures Planning as creative ways to imagine and plan for change. PATH is a planning process developed by Jack Pearpoint and John O'Brien, to assist people, groups, or organizations to move towards a positive future. Personal Futures Planning uses a foundation of capacity-based planning to design positive and possible futures. These tools are used by people with disabilities and their allies, including professionals, who wish to explore a different life course, and by associations of people looking to establish a vision along with a strategy to move towards it.