Keeping at-risk children with disabilities safe

Discovering a New Intervention Method

During the Iron Sword War, while our Ashkelon centers were closed, we initiated professional home visits to help the children with their personally prescribed therapies and show the parents how to maintain their children’s progress.

Thanks to these visits, we discovered that when treatments and guidance are accessible to families when they are at home with their children, it is possible to achieve higher cooperation.

When our counselors came to the homes, they were able to get a first-hand impression of the children’s behavior in their natural environment. They examined the interaction and communication between the children, parents, and siblings, and thus the information obtained was more direct and accurate. 

In addition, when occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and speech therapists came to the homes they were able to offer precise treatments adapted to each child's personal home environment. 

Who is At Risk

In addition to the information gathered from our home visits in Ashkelon, our teams of community-employed social workers and Chimes Israel's team of caregivers at all of our centers identified 32 children from families in distress. Their struggles include poverty, poor parenting, multiple children with special needs, and domestic violence. The professionals assessed that these at-risk families are not providing the care, love, acceptance, and support to help develop their abilities to meet their potential. 

Why Intervene

Today’s prevailing perception is that it is in a child's best interest to grow and develop in their natural environment with their biological parents. In Israel, community Social Services is responsible for taking action to protect at-risk children from unsafe situations. The Chimes program for at-risk preschool children with disabilities seeks to provide the intervention that will prevent Social Services from removing the children from parental custody.

Program Activities, Goals & Measurement

Based on the experience we gained during the Iron Swords war home visits, we determined that providing intensive guidance and support to parents together with their children at home is the ideal way to approach parents in turmoil to give them the skills for a healthier relationship with their child with disabilities. Thus, in effect, the parents get a basis for proper family conduct that reduces environmental risk factors and prevents possible harm to the child's condition. In addition, when occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and speech therapists come to the homes they can offer precise treatments adapted to each child's personal home environment. 

Because many of our “at-risk” families find it difficult to come to the daycare center for parental and professional guidance, the program offers these lessons at home, and include other family members (brothers, sisters, grandparents). It will change existing at-home patterns and expand the family’s ability to provide special needs care.  

The program activity will consist of a parent counselor and a health professional separately visiting each at-risk family at home for 10 sessions each. They will provide targeted child development education, family relationship intervention, formal intensive guidance on normative family and home conduct, and directions on at-home therapy continuation.

We believe this interaction will achieve the following goals verified by their corresponding measurements.

• Goal 1:The program will prevent the children’s removal from their parents' custody to Social Services and an out-of-home arrangement such as foster care.

o   Measurement 1: Each child’s social workerwill report via their required documentation and the program's pre-, six month and year-end questionnaires, on whether or not the parents have acquired more appropriate parenting and disability treatment skills. The report will include the parents' attitudes, child treatment, and their emotional closeness toward the child.

• Goal 2:Parents will report less anxiety and stress and an increased sense of ability to care for their children, leading to an improvement in the relationship between parents and children, as well as the quality of life of family members in general, and children in particular.

o   Measurement 2: The pre-program, six-month, and year-end questionnaireswill assess their comfort, knowledge, behavior, and changes based upon their participation in the project.

• Goal 3:The Center professionals and social workers will report that the parents demonstrate a better understanding of their child's needs, improved communication with the child, and appropriate responses to their needs. The infrastructure for a healthier home where children can grow and develop will improve.

o   Measurement 3:The Center professionals will assess and report on the situation via their required documentation, the Individual Habilitation Plan, and the program's pre-, six-month and year-end questionnaires.They will assess the child's emotional and physical well-being such as whether the child's external appearance has improved (clean bodies, clothes and diaper, whether there are signs of violence on the child).The parent counselor and professional therapist will report that the parents have acquired appropriate treatment skills, demonstrates proper at-home therapy, play, and communication, as well as a positive attitude and emotional closeness towards the children.

Dear Generous Supporter,

Thank you so much for supporting our project to keep at-risk children with disabilities safe. During the first few months of the war, our centers in Ashkelon were closed due to the enormous amount rockets that came into the city. People were confined to their homes and shut in their bomb shelters at this time. Because of this situation, we shifted our services to provide home outreach that consisted of food, medicine, toiletries, communication and assistive technology, physical therapy equipment, and educational aides.

We have also been sending our staff to each child’s home every week to activate their bodies and minds with their personally prescribed therapies. At these visits, they have discovered very frightened children, due the threatening noises and reverberations of the sirens, Hamas rockets, and IDF bombs from nearby Gaza. They also observed parents who did not know how to properly care for their child and their disabilities. As a result, when the children came back to the centers in mid-December, we saw that they lost significant progress because they could not continue the same level of therapy at home that they received in our centers.

The regression put the children at risk of not reaching the potential gained through early intervention. This is critical for their age group because the neural circuits in the brain, the foundation for learning, behavior and health, are only most adaptable during the first three years of life. The intervention can mean the difference between the children requiring support or not in their later years and through adulthood. 

Now, thanks to your support, we are continuing to provide parental education and home therapy equipment so the children can catch up and the parents can be better equipped to support their children’s disabilities. The program is now delivering targeted child development and family relationship intervention as well as helping parents improve their communications with their child and adopt appropriate responses to their child’s needs.

When the war is over, we hope to be able to implement our After-Hours Program for At-Risk Preschool Children by extending the day in Ashkelon to 6:30pm, as an alternative to home care. The preschool children with disabilities who will participate are living with issues such as extreme poverty, abuse, neglect, and inadequate parenting. When the centers close at 3:30pm, many of these young children are put in unsafe and inadequate environments. Here, while their refugee/migrant/immigrant parents work low-paying jobs, these little children are left in cheap daycare that consists of crowded tiny rooms in apartments or basements with poor ventilation, no activities, and scant food. Worst of all, even if the caregivers know how to properly address these children’s special needs, these environs have too many children for the caregivers to be able to provide the attention they need.

The after hours program that we will implement will provide one-to-one rehabilitating and nurturing care alongside leisure and enrichment activities. It will also continue to deliver targeted child development and family relationship intervention.

Thank you again for your continued support as we adapt our services to the changing needs of the communities that we serve.