Help Fund Emergency Pedagogy Team USA—For Immediate Release
Healing in a World of Need
“Traumatized children and adolescents require stable and competent teachers schooled in diagnosing and averting disorders brought on by physical and emotional trauma. Emergency pedagogy is a field that provides immediate pedagogical support to children and youth in the acute phase after experiencing traumatic events.”
Bernd Ruf
In the summer of 2022, Kairos Institute opened its doors. It began offering training in Emergency and Trauma Pedagogy and in Art Therapy. Educators from across the country gathered for the inaugural opening of Kairos Institute at the Center for Anthroposophy in Wilton, New Hampshire, to learn from Bernd Ruf, author of “Educating Traumatized Children.” Ruf is a master Waldorf educator and traumatology expert who founded the Parzival Center and co-founded The Emergency Pedagogy Center in Karlsruhe, Germany. He has personally led over 130 crisis interventions since 2006 and trains groups such as ours worldwide. There are presently 23 trainings. Subsequent trainings in Certified Modules (we work with the Freunde of Waldorf Education and support their work) were held in the summers of 2023 and 2024. With three years of completed Modules, dozens of Waldorf educators are certified to participate in crisis interventions and want to help bring the tools of Emergency Pedagogy and artistic therapies to children, families, and communities, both domestically and internationally.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, members of the Waldorf community in Asheville have asked Kairos to bring members of our newly formed Emergency Pedagogy Team USA to support their community through this intensely devastating and traumatic time. We quickly identified a team that feels prepared to go, and we are actively seeking funding. We will send our team at the end of October and will work with a professionally trained leader.
Financial support is urgently needed to launch support for domestic crisis intervention in the USA. In addition to Asheville, we are witnessing the need for Emergency and Trauma Pedagogy in Waldorf communities nationwide that have experienced climate and human-made disasters. We are preparing to support our schools now and into the future.
We need your help.
Please help us bring Emergency Pedagogy to the communities that have experienced trauma so that these communities can be empowered to become increasingly trauma-resilient. Emergency and Trauma Pedagogy is Education as Preventative Medicine. It is intended to prevent the onset of PTSD and help restore health and well-being to students, teachers, and their families.
Children, adolescents, families, and school communities are counting on all of us to support their need for a healthy and trauma-prepared childhood. Please consider donating on behalf of these communities in need NOW. Thank you so much for your support!
To donate:
- Please visit: https://centerforanthroposophy.org/make-a-donation/
- Scroll down and designate your gift to Kairos Institute
- Further specify the purpose of your donation as: Crisis Intervention
- You may select to give using your credit card (3% processing fee)
- Or you may mail your check made out to Center for Anthroposophy (not Kairos please), to: Center for Anthroposophy, PO Box 15, McMinnville, TN 37111 and put in the memo: Crisis Intervention
- All donations to the Center for Anthroposophy are tax deductible and you will receive confirmation and receipt for your files.
In gratitude and community of hearts…
with Emergency Pedagogy Team USA
Karine Munk Finser
Founder & Director of Kairos Institute
