After entering the After School Care center at Sde Eliezar, it takes just a few minutes to begin to feel the energy of the building. Three rooms house three age 
groups of elementary school children who are brought together twice a week in order to have a positive experience in a safe and nurturing atmosphere.
At first, it seems that this is just another ASC in northern Israel, but at closer look, the uniqueness of the center becomes clear.
What all of the 25 children who attend the Sde Eliezar center have in common is that they have all been identified as children at risk in need of additional care and treatment. Some of the children come from
families in financial trouble; some are neglected and often found wandering their towns at all hours; and still others have family members who have been killed in terrorist attacks. Each child is sent to the center by a social worker and is met with specially trained counselors, who work with the child from after school until six in the evening.
BeYachad provides funding for additional support staff such as youth counselors, a social worker and a psychologist. In addition, BeYachad is assisting the staff to develop clear objectives including building individual treatment plans for each child and encouraging joint child/parent activities.
“We try to provide them a feeling of home, and that this building belongs to them – that each room, even the garden, is theirs,” said the center’s director, Ayelet, a therapy specialist.
Even the basic activities are given a therapeutic tone. Whether it is music therapy, drama therapy, private tutoring or co-ed soccer, each activity is programmed to answer specific emotional, social and scholastic needs.
“The essence of the program,” said Rakefet Reuven, the regional council coordinator of the project, is to reach each child in time.” 
In addition to a hot meal, tutoring, special activities and personal attention, the children are taught to work together.
The program makes a concerted effort to tie together all of the elements influencing the child’s life.
“We don’t want the child to feel his lives on three separate islands. It’s one world. Information passes between the home, their school, and the center – we all work together to 
solve individual problems. We make sure nothing falls between the cracks,” said Reuven.
When asked, the children themselves praise the center. One grade five girl who has attended Sde Eliezar for four years said that she loves soccer, because “here, the boys don’t tell us that we’re no good.”
A grade two boy, who is now in his second year of attendance boasted, “I only missed coming here once, and that was because I had to go to my aunt’s birthday, not because I chose not to come.”
Comments