• The Jerusalem Hills Therapeutic Centers
  • 1 Mitzpe St., Kiryat Yearim, Judean Hills, 9083800
  • 972-77-2023400
  • EN
  • HE
  • The Jerusalem Hills Therapeutic Centers
  • 1 Mitzpe St., Kiryat Yearim, Judean Hills, 9083800
  • 972-77-2023400
  • EN
  • HE

JHTC July 2021 Newsletter

 

A Friendly Sports Tournament – An opportunity for Growth

As the training season draws to a close, and  with the rescinding of covid-19 regulations forbidding play against other teams off campus, the Keshet soccer team went to play  a friendly game against a team in Nes Harim and the Carmel and Lavi basketball teams went to Har Adar to play against their Kat Adar basketball team.

The Keshet soccer team trains every Sunday with their dedicated coach Moshe, who has been coaching the soccer teams at the Home for many years. They are coached on everything from handling the ball to team playing. The team trains very hard, and recently had an excellent tournament against the Mevo Betar kids' soccer team. The children's excitement was great, especially when our team won several games. At the end all the children shook hands and ate pizzas. We thank Moshe for a wonderful year of soccer.

The basketball game was also exciting for all the participants, and was conducted in a very sporting manner. The coach made sure that all 21 children from our team would have their shot at playing, and all the children were very excited. The outing was made even more special because of the sensitivity of the opposing team, who made sure our team felt like equal competitors, encouraged them and behaved wonderfully. At the end of the game, both teams enjoyed pizzas and drinks. Many thanks to the youth department of Hapoel Jerusalem, to the children of Kat Adar and to the dedicated coaches Gidi and Roberto.

Whether it be soccer or basketball, the experience was exceptional for the children, who were able to conquer their fears and anxieties, on a personal level and as a team. Such encounters are extremely meaningful for these children, as it allows them to leave the grounds, have contact with normative children with all that entails, and deal with their concerns and insecurities. They returned to the Home excited, empowered and stronger thanks to the successful experience. The children on the opposing teams were empowered by the experience as well.



Bar/Bat Mitzvah Celebrations

The easing of Covid-19 restrictions brought with it a flurry of bar and bat mitzvah celebrations. The excitement was high as boys and girls from the Lavi, Carmel, Nitzan, Ella and Pele groups prepared for the festivities. The children and staff were so happy at the prospect that celebrations could finally be held as some of the children had been waiting for an entire year due to Covid-19 restrictions. In anticipation of the big day, the children worked on their volunteer projects, presentations, albums, studying the Torah portion, etc., and the staff worked on molding each celebration to suit the children celebrating. 

The boys' celebrations took place in the morning and combined reading from the Torah along with the party. Rabbi Rafi, who has worked with the Bar Mitzvah boys at the Home for many years, accompanied the boys this time as well. The Bat Mitzvah girls who celebrated this year held an afternoon party that included a DJ. The events would not have been so successful had it not been for the great investment of the staff who made sure to give each boy and girl their place at the center, even when it was alongside a number of other celebrants. Special thanks to the C Hotel in Neve Ilan, who continues to support the Home, this time donating delicious food for the various parties.



Focus on special programs in Our Special Education School

Inspirational Women

There are 11 girls aged 9-13 in the Nitzan group. These past two years the girls in the group have been studying about inspirational women, as part of the educational program in school.

The main objective is to instill in the girls the belief and knowledge that there are a variety of options and choices open to them and to introduce them to women who did not have an easy life and yet have succeeded. Some of the girls in the Nitzan group have only known unstable female characters, and do not have positive female role models, so it is important to introduce them to women that can inspire them. Throughout the course they are introduced to an array of diverse female figures from different countries, and from different periods throughout history, in order for them to understand that hardship is not related to race, color, religion, nationality, etc. Through identification and empathy towards these women, the girls are instilled with hope. Each personality is taught over a number of lessons, thus building an opportunity to get to know the individual story in depth, internalize the difficulty and successes, connect with the different women and find the person that inspires hope and inspiration in each of them. The discourse allows a glimpse into the girls' inner, emotional and personal world. They learn that there are different paths in life that can be taken and that it is possible to change their life if they want to. Through these stories, the girls receive tools with which they can deal with their personal difficulties. For example, a strong message the girls took from learning about Helen Keller is that it is important to look at what one has, and not what she doesn’t have. Through this message each girl reflected on what she has.

Why do the girls think it is important to learn about woman leaders? "Every person has an important message that we should learn," "there was a time when women did not have the right to an education," are just some of the answers the girls provided. The inspirational women taught include Malala Yousafzai, Neta Brasilai, Helen Keller, Leah Goldberg, Naomi Shemer, and more.


Digital Book of Our Covid Experiences

As part of the electronic revolution that took place in the school during the Covid-19 crisis, an idea arose to create a digital book that would describe each unit's collective Covid experience. The aim was to process the Covid-19 period experience in the classrooms, to put in writing the issues that arose, individually or as a group story and to bring it all together as an institution-wide project. The book provides a glimpse into the inner world of each unit, at a time when there was distance between the groups due to the Covid-19 restrictions. Each unit chose to present the story in its own way, a way that most characterized it during this period. The digital book will be uploaded to the school's website, where the children can access it from anywhere.


Maturing Together

The teaching staff of the teenage boys in the Carmel unit developed a special curriculum on the topic of puberty and sex education, after identifying a pressing need to address these issues in a manner specifically tailored to our boys’ needs. The class is taught in 40 minute weekly sessions over the course of the year and the group is split into two small groups.

In preparing these sessions, the teachers understood that these boys' sexual world is often distorted, difficult and removed from reality. The goal, then, was to approach sex education in an atmosphere where an open and safe discourse on sexuality could develop and to stimulate critical thinking, specifically about the sexual world.

During the earlier sessions at the beginning of the year the staff encountered difficulties and great resistance for many reasons including: embarrassment, disgust, fear, anxiety and more. Through determination and persistence along with the ability to adapt the sessions to each boy's personal needs, the staff have created an environment that allowed the boys to overcome their resistance, and managed to create a safe and pleasant space where the topic is discussed freely, and issues can arise and be addressed from the boys' inner world.



National Service at the Jerusalem Hills School

We recently held an exciting ceremony concluding a year of volunteering by 4 girls who are serving National Service at our special education school. The girls' parents came to see and hear about the significant role that these girls play in the lives of the children at the Home. As part of the national service program, each of the 4 groups in our elementary unit has a volunteer who accompanies the group on a daily bases throughout the school year. The girls go through an evaluation process prior to acceptance into the program, due to the high emotional strain of working with the children at the Home. Once accepted, they are an integral part of the unit, significant for the staff, and especially for the children. They fill a special slot, which no other staff member has. Because they are closer in age to the children than the permanent staff members, they serve as a kind of big sister and sometimes manage to reach children in ways that other staff members can’t. They influence many aspects of the children's daily routines. In the morning they are part of the direct teaching staff at the school, and twice a week they also enter the cottage in the afternoon and help there as needed.

Good luck to the four national service girls of 2020-21. You each contributed wholeheartedly to your unit and hold a special place in the children and staff's heart. You were an anchor in each of the units, and it is difficult for us to think of the groups without you next year.



Caring for the Caregivers

Staff Seminar - Summarizing a year of Covid-19

After a year in which we faced constantly changing guidelines and mandates, juggling between strict quarantine periods and easing of restrictions, all the while keeping the children's best interests at the forefront, it was very important for us to take a break and give everyone in the staff the space to pause and reflect on the past year, on a personal as well as institutional level. Therefore, once the Covid-19 restrictions were lifted we held a seminar for all employees where they could look back and summarize their experiences, talk about the feelings and emotions that accompanied each one during and after the lockdowns, personally and professionally. The employees were divided into 10 groups; 8 groups according to the various children's units; one for the maintenance staff and one for the administrative staff. In the units, the group steering committee led the discussion, while the head social worker led the discussion for the maintenance staff, and the director of the treatment center led the administrative staff's discussion. The seminar was extremely meaningful and successful, giving each team time to reflect back upon and evaluate the crazy Covid-19 year.


Employees Yearly Trip

Once a year all the employees of the home stop everything, take a break for a whole day, and go on a staff trip. It is a special trip, in the spirit of the Home, where some of the employees run various workshops (teaching special skills or sharing a favorite hobby) and the rest of the staff attend. So what did we have this year? The trip took place at Beit Galili in Kibbutz Naan and included a wide array of workshops; Painting, cake decorating, cooking kubbe, improvisation, koolulam (group singing), acrobalance, meditation, chi-gong and a board game corner. Delicious breakfast and lunch meals were served, and the day ended with a performance by the koolulam workshop. This year this day of investment in the staff was particularly significant as it was one of the first times the entire staff could gather together since Covid and because the past year has been especially challenging for all.



Volunteers Corner

For several years, the Kubiya volunteers from Mizrahi Bank volunteered with the Arbel Group arranging a variety of activities together every few months. A special connection was established between the volunteers from the bank and the boys in the Arbel group. To our delight when the Arbel group graduated and left the Home, the Kubiya volunteers chose to continue their connection and adopt the Carmel boys group. Although during the last year they could not meet, due to the limitations of Covid-19, the employees continued to support the group even from a distance. And now that we can meet again, we look forward to a successful year of activity during the next school year.

We are so happy that Bank Hapoalim's Jerusalem Business Center has also decided to adopt a group at the Home. We recently held the first meeting between the bank's employees and the boys in the Lavi Group. The expectations were high in anticipation of the meeting. They met in the group's cottage; the boys and the group's staff along with the bank volunteers, which included Yigal Bindes, director of the business center and Lior Cohen, Jerusalem's director of retail. They did a round of introductions, where the children were excited and happy to share a little bit about themselves, and played a game of "hot potato". Some of the children helped the volunteers put together a foosball table, a gift from the new volunteers, while the rest played some games together. They all indulged in ice cream and watermelon, and each boy received a gift from the bank. It was a wonderful experience, and everyone is looking forward to the next meeting that will take place in the next months.


Visit to the Superland

The bank of Jerusalem recently invited the Carmel and Keshet groups to join bank employees for and afternoon outing to the Superland. A few volunteers from the Bank joined the two groups and happily accompanied the children on the different rides. The children and staff returned to the Home high from excitement and adrenaline. For the Keshet group this was a special outing, since in the next few weeks the group will be graduating from the Home after 4 years together.
 

We are grateful to the Bank of Jerusalem for this special outing and your ongoing support of the Children's Home.