Our mission is to create wholeness for children and youth with developmental disabilities through education and therapy in extended family living. The Camphill School of Curative Education offers a four-year professional education, the approach to working with children and youth with special needs that is practiced at Camphill Special School. Camphill Special School does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, or disability.

Description:
Houses are organized with houseparents often a family who are more permanent coworkers. Sometimes the role of houseparent is taken by a team of single coworkers who share the responsibilities. The houseparents, or teams, have the overall responsibilities for what goes on in the houses and for the guidance of the young people who have direct care of the children. In each house there are two or three groups of students whose rooms are called dormitories. The students are cared for by a coworker who, in the case of the younger students, takes the title dormitory mother or father. With the adolescents this role transforms into more of a friend and the title of “dorm” mother or father may be dropped. This is the person who has direct care of the student, under the guidance of the houseparent. In some cases, this person is taking the four-year Camphill training in Curative Education. In every house live or are attached teachers, therapists, administrators, and others involved with the students in a more general way. There is a weekly house meeting of coworkers to discuss scheduling, the progress of the children, up-coming events, etc.

In the home teaching and learning are interwoven into the social life. Some children do a significant part of their own learning at home; others need the peacefulness and strength of the home life for the work they do in school. Here is a list of many areas covered by home life: independent living, socialization, communication, leisure time and hobbies, domestic skills, health care, nutrition, and rhythm (daily, weekly, and seasonally).

History:
Camphill has been active since 1940. You may wonder what inspires the work of Camphill. There are many sources, yet a central one can be found in the figure of Kasper Hauser, the Child of Europe. He was 16 or 17 years old when found in Nurnberg, Germany in 1828. He had been imprisoned in solitary confinement for most of his life and thus was profoundly developmentally delayed. Yet, he fascinated and inspired many people through his equally profound innocence, purity and empathy, and an incredible sensitivity. He was the most vulnerable of people. His humanity was not only unimpaired, but also shone forth with unequalled truth and goodness. It is easy to see in him an older brother to the child with mental disabilities. In Camphill we also see him as a guide and guardian of the childhood forces in every human soul that keep the heart open and perceptive, you and future-bearing, creative and full of good will and empathy. In a sense, each of you houses is a Kasper-Hauser-House, asking us to bring order, harmony, beauty, truth, and good will to all the people with whom we share the house. A Camphill house, and therefore, a Beaver Run house, should be a home that Kasper Hauser could walk into at any time and feel at home.

Contact person: Anne Sproll, (phone), (email)
Office fax number: (610) 469-9758

Address:

1784 Fairview Road Glenmoore, PA 19343 (See a map)

Web Site: http://www.beaverrun.org

Directions:

From Philadelphia: 76 West to 202 South to 401 west. You will follow 401 crossing over route 113 and then route 100. After crossing route 100 follow 401 for another mile until Fairview Road, turn right onto Fairview, follow. . . (more) For maps or information, please see http://www.septa.com/

Miscellaneous Information

Are court referrals welcomed?
	No