Psychosocial Rehabilitation for Young Israelis at Risk
The Summit Institute was established in 1973, by North American immigrants, to enhance in-community, non-institutionalized rehabilitation for young Israelis at risk. Today they run a program for 250 teenagers and young adults with a history of psychiatric illness and hospitalization and a rehabilitative foster care program for 750 abused and neglected children and teenagers. Referrals come from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Defense and Israel National Insurance.
Summit aims to prevent the institutionalization of all those in its programs, assisting them to integrate into mainstream Israeli life. They believe that all those in its care have the potential to change, and they adopt an all encompassing approach, addressing the child’s or young adult’s physical, emotional, educational and vocational needs in the rehabilitation process.
Rising levels of poverty in Israel, increased drug and alcohol abuse, the general breakdown of extended family support systems, the growth in the number of single parent families and a recent large influx of immigrants, have led to increasing numbers of children and youth in need of Summit's assistance.
Before we visited Summit, we went through their budgets and financials. At Summit, in the industrial Talpiot area of Jerusalem, we met with staff, participants in the program and a foster care mom. A tour was given by one of the young workshop rehabilitants. It is a very impressive program all the way around.
Our Involvement
Summit has established a family therapy and parent workshop project with the intent of giving eight families the ability to meet separately with two counselors for ten one-hour sessions. The purpose is to address interfamilial dynamics together with the parents and their children involving the parents in the planning of rehabilitation goals where significant improvement is expected in the client’s stability and day-to-day functioning. This sort of program is not covered by insurance. HOT has given a grant to support the cost of therapy for two families at $1,800 per family. Six more families are waiting in the wings for this help.
Summit has a two-stage vocational training project with three workshops: sewing, carpentry and assembly, packaging and mailing. The supportive vocational center trains participants in basic work skills and the supported employment unit provides support to the participants that have made the transition to employment in the open marketplace. Hands On Tzedakah is equipping the Sewing Workshop with an overlock machine, electric pattern cutting knife, steam press, industrial level sewing machine and display cabinet. The carpentry workshop needs a variety of tools totaling $3,620 and the assembly, packaging and mailing workshop needs machines and furniture totaling $15,100.
Contact Information
Yvette Fuchs, Summit Institute, 5 Tsipora St., PO Box 10234, Jerusalem 91101; Tel.: 011-972-2-673-3548; email: omnab1@summit.org.il; www.summit.org.il.
