The creation of Anthroposophical curative education and social therapy goes back to the twenties of the last century. At the time, some young people approached Rudolf Steiner with the wish that he help them to build up an institution for children and young people with disabilities. The result was the development of the:

“Heil- und Erziehungsinstitut für Seelenpflege-bedürftige Kinder”

(Healing and Educational Centre for Children in Need of Special Care of the Soul) on the Lauenstein in Jena, Germany. Steiner visited the freshly founded home and counselled the College in all questions relating to curative education. Rudolf Steiner had, in his years as a student, taken on the education and care of a hydrocephalic child, and himself had a disabled brother.

Developmental problems in children also concerned him strongly in his work in the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart.

Here a remedial class was organised to work with and support those children who experienced difficulties in keeping up with the instruction given in the classes.

The anthroposophical clinic in Arlesheim (Klinisch-Therapeutische Institut), founded by the doctor, Ita Wegman, took in children with disabilities besides its other patients, and their care and support later led to the founding of the children’s home, Sonnenhof, in Arlesheim.

In the first years, the work spread rapidly, with other institutions being founded in Germany, Switzerland, England, Ireland, Finland and Holland. The development was then severely threatened and cut short by the Third Reich. It was only after WW II that a broad expansion became possible. Now training centres for curative educators and social therapists were also established. In the 1950’s the first communities for adults with disability came into being. International cooperation began with the holding of conferences, international working groups and founding of coordinating bodies.

By the 1960’s, there were 111 institutions for people with special needs in 12 different countries.

The sixties and seventies brought with them broader expansion but also the establishment of the legal foundation of Curative Education and Social Therapy within the system of human rights in many countries. Training centres and Associations arose in many additional countries.

A further international expansion was made possible by the fall of the Iron Curtain. By now there are institutions in nearly all of the erstwhile states of the Soviet Union and its satellites.

629 Curative Education & Social Therapy Institutions

59 Training centres

37 Country, Profession and Family Organizations

in 42 Countries