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Annual Activities Report
FROM THE DESK OF ORIT AMIEL
In so many ways, this was an “abnormal year” - the year of COVID-19. The very essence of work as foster families is that personal connection and the bond with the children and young adults. The process is made possible as our foster coordinators visit the homes. Those site visits are critical for their work - but over the past year any sense of continuity which is so important for the foster process was interrupted.
Our work requires human contact, and while it is viewed by the government as “essential”, our staff was also limited by their own constraints of quarantines and children at home. All this made for many challenges.
Throughout the year, our senior staff worked tirelessly to find solutions to the problems the crisis presented. At the same time, we looked for new ways to work that would allow us to best provide for our foster families and children. We forged ahead with Zoom or when that wasn’t possible, by phone. As soon as we could, we welcomed the chance to meet up in open spaces. That was certainly better but still not the intimate surroundings that allow for real communication.
The biggest obstacle was finding the ways to keep the bond between the child and their parents in a way that allowed for continuity while also ensuring that the virus wouldn’t pass from one to the other. This was a constant challenge, particularly in the hardest hit areas of the country.
At the same time, our teams intensified their efforts to provide emotional support via Zoom.
From the early days of the crisis, we established a partnership with Bar Ilan University, where research helped guide our understanding of the impact of Corona on our work. The research showed that the support we gave our staff was very important and helped give them the “fuel” to continue on in the more challenging times. The research also investigated the impact of the challenges that arose from needing to communicate with our foster families from a distance.
Another survey we carried out was how our adolescents were coping with the challenges of isolation and how that impacted on their study patterns. Despite the challenges, the older youth in our foster program credited the support they had been receiving from their foster parents during these difficult times. After getting the results of the survey, we met with our foster parents on Zoom to better understand how we could address all these issues. Many different topics and concerns were shared- alongside impressions on how we could remain hopeful and help calm the children.
In addition, we provided other meeting spaces for families via Zoom, both in smaller groups and larger gatherings. We addressed topics like dealing with crisis and how to respond to episodes of “acting out” and helping the children with
their emotional challenges. A serious obstacle was helping the foster children interact with grandparents who we know were at higher risk of infection and we needed to limit the extent of interaction.
Another difficulty which arose was helping families with children with special needs, who were kept at home and outside of their normal learning frameworks. We increased our response for these families and with donor support we were able to add counselors to help these children.
In addition, through the help of donors and the support of the Welfare Ministry, we distributed hundreds of computers that were used for learning and for the children’s free time.
Despite the crisis, we have made every effort to maintain a sense of routine in our work and programming. The annual program for teens, where they are trained in specific life skills in their last year in their foster homes, went ahead under the Tav Sagol guidelines.
The film “Children on Condition” (Yeladim Al Tenai) which was produced through support from Summit by Noam Damski and Ido Bahat, was featured at the Tel Aviv Doco Festival and on HOT 8 and at several other events. The film followed the progress of three teen foster children over the course of three years and is a deeply personal and emotional production that has evoked considerable conversation around foster families and specifically when and how the foster process can end.
We made every effort to continue operating our psychiatric clinic, whose function was all that much more important duringthesetimes. Whereverpossible,wecontinuedproviding therapies for the children in their local areas. The Meimad program that focuses on the bond between parents and children was shifted to Zoom - and where possible to open spaces.
One area that we never slowed down on, and even stepped up our efforts, was in placing children with foster families. We continued to find and recruit new families through “parlor meeting” events that were held on Zoom. It was interesting to see how many families actually chose to come to us during this period of crisis when they recognized just how important a social responsibility it is to be able to give children a supportive homeenvironment. Alltherapeuticandothereffortswent ahead to ensure every child and family was given the support they needed.
The year of course came to an end with a note of optimism as the vaccination drive began and we look forward to only healthier days ahead.
Orit Amiel, Director of Foster Services
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