The name "LifeWays" grew from the realization that what young children need most is the routine activities of a healthy home life, bathed in the warmth of secure relationships - whether they are at home or in childcare. Blessing to use the name was given by Gudrun Davy, Bons Voors, Patti Smith and Signe Schaefer (editors of the two Lifeways books) and Lee Sturgeon-Day, who uses the name in her biography and counseling work. With their blessing in place, the first LifeWays Center was opened in Wisconsin in September 1998 as a pilot childcare project for children three months to six years old and host to the first LifeWays training.
The current working group of LifeWays North America has been meeting since 2001 to expand the work of LifeWays. We are pleased that Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, California, serves as the West Coast regional center for LifeWays, and that the College has opened a LifeWays Childcare Center on its campus. Plans for the new Caldwell Early Life Center at Rudolf Steiner College include not only expanding this childcare center, but also opening a teacher training center embodying these impulses.
The LifWays approach can not enrich home life for parents who are able to stay home with their young children, but it can help to transform the approach to childcare in this country to one that is relationship-based and family oriented. If you are an in-home care provider or if you wokr in a center and resonate with the LifeWays principles and practicies, we hope you will learn more about LifeWays by visiting www.lifeways-center.org. Particularly in the world of childcare and parent education, a recognizable name or approach often helps parents feel more secure in their decision to place their children in the care of another.
National Office:
433 N. Lake Rd.
Oconomowoc, WI 53066
(262) 560-9695
www.lifeways-center.org
West Coast Regional Center:
Rudolf Steiner College
Attn: Rena Osmer
9200 Fair Oaks Blvd.
Fair Oaks, CA 95628
(916) 961-0927
East Coast Regional Center:
Susan Silverio,
Ashwood Waldorf School
105 Prctor Rd
Lincolnville, ME 04849
(207) 763-4652
Coordinating Team:
Cynthia Kruis Aldinger
Executive Director, LifeWays North America
Early Childhood Educator and Consultant
International Lecturer on Child Development
Board Member of Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America
Rosario Villasana-Ruiz
LifeWays Training Consultant/Child Development Specialist
Bilingual (English/Spanish)
Instructor at City College of San Francisco
Children's Council of San Francisco Family Childcare
Consultation for Home-Based Childcare
Individual Child Consultation
Susan Silverio
LifeWays East Coast Training Director
Early Life Director at Spindlewood
(Ashwood Waldorf School in Maine)
Rahima Baldwin Dancy
LifeWays Consultant
Midwife, Early Childhood and Parenting Educator &
Author of You are Your Child's First Teacher
Founder/Director of Informed Family Life and Conference Organizer
