Support Families with Special Needs in Palestine

Thanks to your help, at the Homes we have been able to expand our family support program to even the youngest of our residents’ families.

Open days provide a special opportunity for children to gather with other youngsters who also have a differently challenged member.  Frequently, the children learn new ways of engaging comfortably with their loved one via simple games, hugs and smiles.  Our residents are thrilled. 

On Open Days, family members have new shared experiences with their loved ones—and create happy memories until the next visit.

Family members who have participated in the Family Support Program immediately reach out to new family members, providing them with the support they craved until the program began.

Please know that you have made a huge difference in the lives of our residents to their families.

Thank you! for your caring and sharing.

Having much loving contact with their families is an on-going challenge for many of our residents.  Their disabilities require assistance that many families simply cannot provide.  Their homes are not wheel-chair accessible.  Parents may have aged past the point of being able to help or died.  Siblings have married and the new spouse refuses to have our resident home—except, perhaps for brief visits.

Permits are denied.

In all such instances, the Homes works extraordinarily hard and creatively to foster and sustain the bonds between out resident and his/her family:

Samira, now 49, came to us when she was 17.  Delightful, articulate—in English as well as her native Arabic, a fashion aficionado, Samira was born with cerebral palsy, is largely paralyzed on one side, and moves about easily in her electric wheelchair. 

Because Samira is from Gaza and her family was barred from coming to Bethany to see her, for many years, her only family contact has been an occasional phone call.  Both her parents have now died.

When, finally, the Homes were able to get her surviving brother a permit and he came to see her, Samira’s smile lit up the entire building!  

As we begin the holy month of Ramadan, the Homes are providing educational, emotional and logistical support so as many of our residents can spend as much time as possible with their families. Your assistance helps make this possible.

Thank you!!

Because of your help, our family support groups at Four Homes of Mercy have provided an ever-widening circle of help to the families of those severely challenged people for whom we provide a residence and therapeutic services. Attracted by the demeanor and actions of the group’s participants, others have now joined and gratefully received the support of their peers as well as staff.

Sadly, still within the local communities, families with an impaired loved one encounter much negativity expressed in looks as well as words.

To avoid the pain, some family members anxiously tend to isolate themselves, and live on the margins of life.  The stress often impairs all aspects of the family’s life—even leading to divorce.  The ability of the family to care for their impaired one becomes greatly reduced.

For these families, the family support group is literally a lifeline.

Nadia, our newest resident, is 17.  Suffering from oxygen deficiency at birth and greatly underweight, she spent her first month of life in the hospital.  Because of a genetic defect, she has failed to develop normally.  Her 19 year old brother also suffers from the same defect.

When the stress of caring for Nadia and her brother caused her parents to divorce, they brought her to the Homes—and began to participate in the family support group.

With the support of others in the group, they are learning how to cope with their stress and guilt, how to make Nadia’s brief visits home more enjoyable and easier for all, how to emerge from their cocoons, to do some things they enjoy, and cope with the stares and glares of ignorant and unkind people…..Their relationship is slowly mending.

Thank you for helping to provide the healing to this family—and to many others.  There is no way we can thank you enough!

Family Support Program

This is what YOU have made possible by your gifts—the continuation and expansion of our family support program!

Issa’s younger sister is also differently-abled but less impaired and much smaller, easier to lift from bed to wheelchair and back.  In the Family Support Group meeting, their mother shared how extremely stressful and exhausting it had been, caring for both children at home, trying to get Issa the support he needed, and the tremendous strain it had been for the family. She also shared how hard it had been to make time for the rest of her family, and how it had affected the relationships with other family members….She said that during this especially difficult time, she found it very helpful to get advice and support from the parents of other challenged children who could readily emphasize with her difficulties.  She is now deeply grateful for the chance to share her feelings of frustration at her inability adequately to care for both children at home, her sadness of having to return Issa to the Homes and her happiness and relief that he is again getting the help and stimulation he needs.

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Maryam’s father, a teacher, married another woman after the death of his wife.  During the 10 months of the Corona Crisis, he cared for her.  When, however, the Homes were able to re-admit residents, his current wife threatened to leave if he continued to keep his daughter at home.  Feeling very depressed, but that he had no choice, he brought his daughter back to the Homes.  He told the group that the feelings of sadness and remorse had continued to haunt him.  Meeting with other families and sharing the same problems, he reported, “greatly helped him to reduce these bad feelings”. 

The Four Homes of Mercy created the family support program to provide information, advice and emotional support to families to strengthen the caring connection to their loved ones, whenever possible, have their resident home for visits.    Four groups now meet on Fridays.  After the meetings, the participants usually spend time with their loved ones.  Our residents are delighted!

For families, living with and caring for a person with intellectual disabilities has clearly adverse effects on the health and well-being of parents, and family members. For parents, having a disabled child increases stress, takes a toll on mental and physical health and affects all aspects of family life, including decisions about work, education, family finances and social relations.  Many families, lacking knowledge about how to cope with someone with intellectual disabilities, and/or how to cope with the social stigma having such a family member too often creates, decide to place their loved one in a place that specializes in caring for such individuals.  Alas, this often results in the isolation and segregation of the loved one from their families and communities which negatively impacts that person’s self-image and mental health.  Unfortunately, because of the lack of community-based programs, many families have no alternative.

The Homes are working to expand Family Support Program to provide support to additional families, both within and without the Homes.

A wonderful day!  the reunion of the Family Support Group—that for the past two years,  Covid had allowed to meet only via zoom and/or whatsapp.  The meeting brought forth lots of lots of radiant smiles, happy greetings,  and great sighs of relief.  Each participant knew he/she had survived Covid-time, and could see those who also had survived the  two years of very difficult challenges.

You gave an enormous gift by giving our people the chance to share in person their trials and triumphs. Your gifts kept this program alive.

Finally, after sharing their challenges, the family members were able to start planning for the future—how to further enrich the lives of their loved ones during visits to them at the Homes, which they hope to be more frequent than pre-Covid.  Each family member learned something from the others that will make this possible.

Besides reaching out to others’ family members, this group will also help the Homes’ staff to reach out to and involve others who, for a variety of reasons, were unable to participate regularly during Covid.  The seeds you have planted will provide a rich crop of education and support to our other families—thereby enriching their lives and the lives of their loved ones whom they entrust to us.

On behalf of the families, their loved ones and our staff, our deepest thanks.