Site Visits at Services for Children and Youth at Risk in Haifa

Site visits were carried out at the Multi Purpose Day Care, the "Girls for success" program, the "Yodafat" after school therapeutic club for youth, the "Bilu" community center and the "Yeladainu Be'tnufa" resident association for children at risk in Hadar.

The site visits were a success. They provided validity for the theoretical issues of "resilience for children at risk" and "family reunification" that were under discussion during the entire visit.

The visits familiarized our guests with the professional work being carried out with the children and their families, and allowed them to meet some of the professional workers, local services' clients and activators.

Our guests expressed that they were impressed by the strong sense of responsibility that the professional workers have toward their clients and tasks, and from the workers' interest in learning new approaches to their work.

Further, the service visits helped Professor Wertlieb, Dr. Sommer and Ms. Fishman to connect with the seminar participants and to relate to their daily work and responsibilities.

Seminars Conducted at Mercaz Gil

Forty participants attended two seminars at Mercaz Gil:

1. Fostering Resilience: Risks and Benefits - presented by Professor Donald Wertlieb and Ms. Jill Fishman, Graduate Teaching Assistant.

2. Wraparound Services: A Psychotherapist's View of Integrating Children, Families and Communities in a System of Care - Presented by Dr. Len Sommer.

The participants' positive feedback indicated that the seminars were a success. Participants found the seminars interesting, useful, and practical for both field workers and policy makers.

Conclusions Concerning the Seminars:

Invitations for the seminars:

    * There were not enough field workers participants. There was a need to contact each of the welfare department's managers personally, to ensure that more workers would attend.

    * Most of the participants were from the welfare services. It was important to invite more workers from education and health services that work with children at risk and their families.

The emphasis of the visit should have been more on learning from our guests rather than site visits at the welfare services in Haifa. From the seminar's feedback we have learned that a two-day seminar would have made more effective learning. Ideally this would be structured so that the first day would focus on a theoretical emphasis, while the second day would take up reference to these theories and discuss them in the practical aspects of field dilemmas and case studies, from examples and questions raised by the participants. This would have enabled Dr. Sommers' expertise in clinical work to provide more fruitful input.

Other meetings during our guests' visit:

    * Professor Avi Sagi from Haifa University. The purpose of this meeting was to inform Prof. Sagi of Mercaz Gil's activities. There is a possibility that Prof. Sagi will help bring experts in the field of "resilience for children at risk" to a future Mercaz Gil conference.

    * Yael Shalgi from "Matan". The meeting was set up to explore the possibility of Matan's joining as Mercaz Gil partner. "Matan" has no interest in funding services that are not giving a direct treatment to families and children.

    * Professor Jona Rosenfeld from Brookdale Institute and Dr. Ron Schor from Jerusalem University, both of whom are members of Ashalim's Community Services Professional Committee. They share interest in the issues of "Resiliency" and "Multiculturalism".

    * Diana Shimoni, in charge of partnership and voluntarism at Elka-JDC. This meeting set out to explore and advance mutual interests in a cross-sectoral partnership as a potential avenue for future support of Mercaz Gil.

    * Rakefet Ben Dori, Coordinator, Mercaz Gil. The meeting discussed techniques for children's interviews for the resilience model.

In addition to the above, other meetings were also held that did not directly relate to the activities of Mercaz Gil. In particular, there was a meeting with the Gordon College staff, Sharona Maital, Ofec Meir (Leo Beack School Manager), and Dori Rivking (Brookdale Institute).

Steering Committee Meeting

On the last day of our guests' visit, the Steering Committee of Mercaz Gil conducted a meeting to discuss the continuing collaboration between Boston and Mercaz Gil. Decisions reached at this meeting were as follows:

    * Establish a research group and knowledge pool in Boston, similar to those existing in Haifa. Shared dilemmas and case study would be discussed via video conferences.

    * Mercaz Gil Professional Exchange. This would involve drafting a proposal to CJP for 2006 that would bring a group of colleagues from Mercaz Gil to Boston in April 2006.

    * Revise Mercaz Gil's Evaluation Plan according to the changes in Mercaz Gil's activities on 2005.

The meeting closed with comments from our guests and steering committee representatives that the organization of our guests' visit was well done.

Overall Conclusion:

The visit has promoted the activities of Mercaz Gil. The site visits and seminars around the issues on Mercaz Gil raised the awareness of professional workers from Haifa's welfare services regarding the activities of the center.

The profound organized and spontaneous discussions that occurred throughout the visit, and the bibliographic materials that the guests brought with them to augment Mercaz Gil's Knowledge Library, enriched the matters of "family reunification" and "resilience" and made these issues more understandable.

However, the visit did not reach the goal of insuring the sustainability of Mercaz Gil after 2005.