Although I speak Hebrew fluently, I never heard the term
“mishpachton”. Really, even if you don’t have a strong background in Ivrit,
it’s pretty simple to find the shoresh, the root word
– it’s ‘mishpacha’ – family. So, I’ll stop giving you a lesson in
Modern Hebrew and get to the point. The Children’s Home will soon shed the formal
setting that homes for disadvantaged, neglected, abused and abandoned kids have
followed for hundreds of years. The Rubin-Zeffren Home will change its face –
it’ll get a makeover, actually, a total new image – an even happier one!
After much research and development, and following proven
models already in existence in Israel, we have decided to house our girls in
familial group settings. The new model homes will each be headed by a very
capable married couple – a home with two parents that have a few children of
their own, adding several of our own precious girls into their midst and
creating a warm and nurturing close-knit real family atmosphere, no different
than a household like yours and mine.
The home setting campuses that already exist in Israel have shown
a tremendous rate of success. Children, who live in a genuine family ambiance,
with a cozy and very personal environment, feel more secure and confident –
they feel more normal, like most of their peers in school.
Children-at-risk, who have been removed from their homes by
the welfare services on court order, are currently sent to various frameworks
outside their homes. These alternative housing situations serve as places where
the child can grow and develop outside of, but parallel to, the biological
family from which they were removed.
At the Rubin-Zeffren Children’s Home, our goal is to create
an all-inclusive environment that envelops and provides for the physical
needs of each girl, in addition to their educational and emotional needs as
well. This is a hopeful and sturdy premise upon which a better future is
created for the child.
Extensive research has shown that the optimum way to
ascertain whether an out-of-home environment is successful is to examine the
extent to which the framework duplicates the home from which the girl was
removed. The usual institutional dormitory creates a tremendous gap between the
ideal model home of a well-functioning family unit. So, in order to minimize
this gap, a model of a “mishpachton” (in essence, a miniature family) has been
proposed. This model attempts to create family-like units within the larger framework
of a dormitory environment.
The physical structure groups each unit of girls into a
miniature family, which has a common daily schedule, joint activities, and
meals and leisure time together. This warm mood will create a feeling of
belonging to a unit, hence, solidarity. Staff members leading a “mishpachton”
represent the guiding parental figures.
At Lev LaLev, we believe that this model will meet our goals
for establishing the proper environment for girls who have been removed from
their homes – offering them a place to call home – a natural world where they
enjoy a structured family life.
To find out more about how you can help build a mishpachton, email
rachel@levlalev.com
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