Ergotherapy and/or Unpaid Work in Closed Institutions for Children with Disabilities in Bulgaria in the 1950s–1960s

In the late 1950s–1960s, there were around 25 social institutions for intellectually disabled children and adolescents in Bulgaria. Most of these care homes were in isolated areas and peripheral border zones. The aim of the paper is to present the implementation of labour methods in social institutions in the 1950s and 1960s following the Decree of the Council of Ministers No. 666 (1953) on the opening of auxiliary farms and workshops at psychoneurological and social care institutions.
With this paper, we study how the work of the residents of homes for people with disabilities was organised, explored and reported in terms of ergotherapy. We look at what kinds of work were carried out, how the therapeutic effects on children’s development were reported, the management and the production goals of the work that was performed on the farms and in the workshops, as well as the payment for this work. The research is based on orders issued by the Ministry of Health as well as preserved documents from several homes for children and juveniles with disabilities in the Sofia and Blagoevgrad regions, along with the homes’ production plans and reports.