Helena T. Devereux

Helena Trafford Devereux (February 2, 1885 – November 17, 1975) is the founder of the Devereux Foundation and is considered a pioneer in the field of special education. In 1912, she began the first Devereux School for Exceptional Children in her home with less than $100. Today, more than 6,000 Devereux staff provides services to tens of thousands of children, adolescents, adults, and their families in 11 states and millions more across the country through public education and prevention programs each year.

Helena Devereux graduated from the Philadelphia High School for Girls in 1904 and from the Philadelphia Normal School in 1906 where she trained to become a teacher. Upon graduation she began teaching in one of Philadelphia’s most underprivileged communities, at the George Washington School in South Philadelphia. At a time when very little was known or understood about people with disabilities, Devereux took an interest in “slow learning” children. She recognized early that the public school system was ill-equipped to teach children with mental handicaps. Her intuitive ideas in developing individualized educational programs for children with special needs were far beyond her time. While the system had typically referred to slow learners as “throw-aways” Devereux believed that every child should be given opportunities to learn and achieve personal accomplishments. She believed that special educators are missionaries at heart. Soon, her class became the de facto special education classroom. In 1911, Devereux was offered the job of Director of Special Education by the Philadelphia Board of Education, a new position designed to supervise the creation of a special education department. Despite being offered a handsome salary for the time, she turned it down, believing that she could have a greater impact branching off on her own.

Also in 1911, Devereux received national attention following a visit to her classroom from a reporter. Shortly thereafter, “The First Class of Special Education in an Elementary School in Philadelphia” was published.Following the publication about her teaching methods, Devereux was contacted by a parent in South Carolina, interested in entrusting her challenged son to Devereux’s care. For $200, Devereux agreed to assume responsibility for the boy during the summer. The child, Robert Simpson, would become Devereux’s first private school student. During that time, Devereux also received similar offers from other parents of children with special needs. In the summer of 1911, Devereux rented at six-bedroom home in Avalon, New Jersey in order to teach and care for eight children.

In 1912 several children continued to live with Helena Devereux in her own home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which became her first private school, and thus marking the beginning of The Devereux Foundation. During that time, Devereux remained a public school teacher, and employed two assistant teachers to teach and look after students during the day. She devoted herself to continued study in order to learn how to best serve her students. Between the years of 1910 and 1918, Devereux participated in several post graduate endeavors, including the study of psychiatry, psychoanalysis and speech therapy at colleges and universities in the Philadelphia area. She also took apprenticeship training in the areas of occupational therapy, woodworking and handicrafts. All her efforts focused on improving the education and experience of the students in her charge. In 1914 she began working for the Philadelphia Normal School in order to teach post graduate students in the country’s first course on special education. She resigned from that position in 1918 in order to pursue her goal of teaching her private school students full-time. In January 1918 she used $94 of saved and borrowed funds in order to rent a house in Devon, Pennsylvania.

...
Wikipedia