Talpiot Children’s Village uses a new approach to family therapy to treat at-risk children and parents.
By PATRICIA CARMELFoster parents Rivka and Ofer Hadry.(photo credit: PATRICIA CARMEL)
At the Talpiot Children’s Village in Hadera, children at risk are treated together with their parents in a program that is tailored to the unique needs of each family.This innovative approach represents the core philosophy of Talpiot, a nonprofit organization, that, in addition to the village, implements a wide range of community projects throughout the region from Hof Hacarmel to Herzliya.“Sometimes the child has to be removed from his home in order to give him a better future,” says Simona Kedmi, director of resource development at Talpiot.“However, we don’t focus only on the child but rather involve the entire family in the treatment because the need to remove the child from his home is a consequence of a problem from within the family.”Kedmi said the organization doesn’t give up on the parents.“The vast majority of them can be helped, trained, counseled and supported so they can exercise their right to function as parents and the child’s right to live with his family.”Talpiot was originally established as the Youth Aliya Children’s Village in Jerusalem in the 1950s under the auspices of the World Youth Aliya Movement. The movement was founded in 1934, just after the Nazis’ rise to power. Following the Holocaust it was instrumental in bringing displaced youth to Israel and placing them in children’s villages, where they were given a warm and supportive home.In 1970, the Talpiot Children’s Village was relocated to Hadera, and over time its purpose changed to accommodate the waves of immigration from Russia and Ethiopia. In 2000, with fewer children making aliya, Talpiot directors decided to focus on providing support for at-risk children. Then director the late Dr. Eli Sheetrit traveled abroad, to investigate different treatment models. Based on an approach used in the Netherlands, Talpiot, in conjunction with the Welfare and Social Services Ministry, initiated the family-oriented therapy model for children at risk and their parents.At-risk children are defined as those with dysfunctional parents who do not know how to care for their children, who are drug addicts or mentally ill, and where there is domestic violence and sexual abuse within the family, all factors that inhibit the normative development of a child.Kedmi says they have had some very difficult cases. For example, children who have witnessed violence against their mother, who have seen their mother abused and even murdered, and children who were victims of sexual abuse and rape.“But in all these cases, we never give up on the parents, even those who suffer from mental illness. Even after 14 years, we are still considered the harbingers of this concept.”Talpiot also treats families who are borderline at risk, usually those who are the second or even third generation of a disadvantaged upbringing.“The parents had no role models. They got married and they had children but they have no idea what they are supposed to be doing, even when it comes to the most basic things like teaching their children to brush their teeth every day,” she says. “It was never part of their family upbringing.But over time, if they’re counseled and supported, they can become good parents and provide a healthy family framework for their children.”According to Shem Tov Weizman, director of Talpiot, there’s a difference between traditional methods of treatment where the child is placed in the center, and Talpiot, which encompasses the whole family.“In the former model, you’re telling the parents that they are failures and that the authorities will act as the parents in their place. But when you include the parents in the treatment, we are in effect telling them, ‘okay, we understand there’s a crisis, we believe you’re a good mother, a good father. And you’ll be even better after we’ve worked together.’ Working together is what makes the difference – a significant difference.”There are currently 200 children aged five to 15 in the village. The landscaped and gated community includes a residential facility, which is divided into family units simulating a family home. A married couple serves as foster parents for up to 12 children who have been removed from their homes, together with the couple’s biological children. The apartments are well designed and tastefully furnished with bright, non-institutional colors. Two children share a bedroom and four children a bathroom. Women doing national service also live in the apartments to help the counselors look after the children.The children are referred to Talpiot by the Welfare and Social Services Ministry, whereupon a joint committee consisting of Talpiot professional staff and social welfare authorities meet to decide if Talpiot can provide the most appropriate therapeutic environment for the child.“Relative to other organizations, we have a very high ratio of professional staff to the number of children, with 150 permanent members of staff, using a range of therapies such as drama, music, photography and dance. There’s also an animal petting zoo. We are always investigating new responses to the problems we encounter. We try to think out of the box and are open to new ideas.”In addition to the residential facility, Talpiot hosts a wide spectrum of programs within the campus, as well as a number of outreach programs in the community.Overall, more than 1,000 children and their families throughout the region benefit from Talpiot’s services.Children participating in the after- school day-care program are picked up from school and bused to the village, where they stay until after dinner. During the afternoon, they are given recreation and enrichment activities, as well as treatment and therapeutic support for themselves and their parents.“Parents sign a contract that obligates them to take part in the treatment,” says Kedmi. “We tell them that if they don’t want to have their children removed to a residential facility, they have to come once a week for therapy.”There is also a junior high school and a treatment center, where the social workers and therapists meet with the families.Around 40 to 45 children are returned to their homes every year after a period of four to five years of intensive therapy programs.According to Weizman, these figures prove that they’re using the correct approach.“It’s much simpler to treat the child on his own because he’s small, more likely to cooperate, easier to shower with love. But it’s the parents who are creating the problems and if we don’t treat them as well, nothing will change.“Parents always want to be better parents,” he continues. “There are families whose life was in shambles but after undergoing therapy at the joint children-parent sessions, they learn to develop a new kind of communication system between themselves and their children. This gives them the confidence that they’re doing something right. The children need this too, they’re hungry for a proper parental relationship.”Another compelling reason for inclusive family therapy is that once a child is defined as at risk, it is likely his younger siblings will become children at risk as well.“We save the state millions of shekels every year because the cost of removing a child to a residential facility is very high. If parents can learn to be better parents, the children will not need to be removed from their home,” says Weizman.“People who grew up in a culture of violence find it very difficult to make the transition to expressing themselves in a nonviolent way. You see it in the behavior of the children, because what is done to them, they do to others. Eventually, both children and parents learn to express themselves in a different way. At the end of the day, we’re creating better citizens,” he says.“These are our children and we’re happy to support them and their families. This is our work. We’re doing exactly what we’re supposed to do.”
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