RITTMEYER
REGIONAL INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND
From the beginning of the early 20th century to the third millennium, almost a hundred years long lasting history.
The Rittmeyer Institute was founded in 1913 thanks to baroness Cecilia de Rittmeyer’s generous donation. She was considerably concerned with visual disability, in accordance with Protestant patronage.
From its beginnings to today, the Institute’s path was dictated by social and scientific advancement, and by the change of users’ requirements. The Institute started off as a care center for the blind, and around the Twenties-Thirties it gradually evolved into and educational institution.
In the mid- ‘60s it established a multi-impaired department, which later on led to the actuation of an employment facility, to provide young people with multiple disabilities perspective for the maintenance and additional advancement of their abilities.
The Institute has entered today a new phase. Whilst maintaining the majority of its already established services – assistance to school and university students, vocational training, employment laboratory, daily community center for elderly people – it has gradually abandoned the boarding school approach as the sole effective solution for the rehabilitation and independence achievement of blind or visually impaired individuals.
Rittmeyer’s specialists focus indeed mainly on custom-built projects, characterized/defined by a multidisciplinary approach with twice or thrice weekly assistance.
These achievements have been obtained thanks to the professionalism of the Institute’s educators and the establishment of a multi-purpose équipe, capable of providing solutions on a global scale to users’ daily issues. The équipe is composed, among others, by specialists in typhlo-pedagogy, psychology, psychomotricity, physical therapy, music therapy, speech therapy, visual rehabilitation, basic stimulations, pet-therapy, multi-disability, horticultural therapy, personal autonomy, orientation and mobility.
Rittmeyer’s équipe has already consolidated this wide-ranging methods and routes approach, by carefully designing education at home, working closely with school boards, taking on the role of the guide and point of reference to identify the most suitable subventions and to choose the best means, technologies and materials.
In particular, the Institute has developed and effective system in favor of educational integration, its presence in schools, support for special ed teachers, activities planning in tandem with and to complement those already carried out in classroom. Last but not least, it is important to draw attention to the Senior visually impaired citizens’ home which has been a prominent addition to the wide-ranging services the Institute consistently provides.
RITTMEYER – REGIONAL INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND
Address: Viale Miramare, 119, 34136, Trieste
Phone: +39 040 4198911
Fax: +39 040 4198925
Website: https://www.istitutorittmeyer.it
E-mail: info@istitutorittmeyer.it