Photo by Sujata Khanna Photography. Sitting in the first SRV workshop was like looking into a mirror for Elizabeth Albuquerque (Liz). “... my belief system, of how every human being deserves respect, dignity and a purpose in life .... was right there staring back at me.” Creating meaningful and valuable social roles for each person...Read More

Social devaluation and marginalization diminishes people, makes people seem small, and even makes people invisible to the rest of society, particularly if they are locked away in mental hospitals. Valued social roles, even small ones, have the capacity to help people be bigger, stand taller, feel stronger, and shine.Read More

Photo by Sujata Khanna Photography. Person-Centered Planning can be a powerful method to help envision all sorts of valued roles a person might move into. Autism Society West Bengal gave their organization a powerful boost when they combined their SRV savvy with a tool like PATH to give a roles-based vision. Mr. Amitava Basu took...Read More

Samarpan always wanted a job. He wanted to travel to work, get paid, and work just like any other young person his age. However, studying in a special school, he was constantly protected, and taught skills in “pretend situations,” so for him, real work had not been a real consideration. And then came the introduction...Read More

Kiran, a young woman with developmental disabilities, lived in a congregated, segregated institution under terrible conditions for many years, as both a child and an adult. Moving to a typical home with 3 other women was a big change in her life, and she had no friends or relatives to welcome her there, except for...Read More

In the city of Bengaluru, the families and leaders of Bubbles Centre and Pragati joined together to empower families to engage powerful, inclusive, person centered tools to help imagine and move towards positive and possible futures for the students and young adults they serve. Within their method, a group of families joined hands to learn...Read More

Photo by Sujata Khanna Photography. When Bhawna and Rosy left the shelter home, they owned nothing – not a stitch of clothing, a photograph, or a memento to tell their story, to hold their history, and ground them. Those who assisted these young women to leave that shelter home in the north of India and...Read More

Mr. Shrutarshi Banerjee lives in Kolkata, and if you are lucky enough to meet him, he will be introduced an entrepreneur, a manager, and a business partner. His life has changed so much from the days of pre-vocational class engagement that were not leading toward employment or other valued roles.Read More

If you walk into the employment section of Autism Society West Bengal, you won’t hear the workers and trainees referred to as “our children.” You won’t see the walls jam-packed with donation plaques lauding all the generous benefactors, nor see all sorts of autism awareness and diagnostic posters on the walls. These examples are “red...Read More

Photo by Sujata Khanna Photography People with disabilities have often been seen and described as “those people” – and segregation and congregation increases the tendency to not only other such people, but to see them as a clump who are much the same as each other. One strategy which is taught within the framework of...Read More