I discovered a new blog about care for the retarded in Israel. The focus seems to be residential facilities for the seriously retarded, those who cannot be cared for at home. Please don't say that the families can keep their retarded children. That's not always the case, especially when the "children" are middle-aged and the parents are elderly or deceased.
In many cases, there is no family member who can handle the responsibilities, so the parents work hard to find a residential facility for their child.
The blog's first post discusses the staff problem. By paying only the minimum wage possible, it attracts workers who don't care about the residents. There's a lot of abuse.
I'll have to keep checking up on the blog to see what they add.
3 comments:
While I assume that Israeli healthcare does pay for some sort of care, at the end of the day,
each of these organizations must fight for decreasing Jewish philanthropy if they want to provide 'extra'.
A couple I've known about for a while:
http://www.alyn.org/
http://www.akim-jerusalem.org.il/
Many others here:
http://www.ujc.org/page.aspx?id=25408
Thanks
This blog seems to be dealing with the problems in the residential institutions for the severely retarded.
Thank-you for posting this
Unfortunately it is not always only the severely retarded that get put into mamouth institutions.
When parents (or other gardians) approuch the government for placement for their child (which may be not only because of their non-ability to care for the child, but due to the child not having enough to do at home, the placement can be:
-big institution
-hostel (also rather big)
-dirah b'kehilah (can be 2 apartments together)
-diur bkehillah
The government has a tendency to put into large settings; it saves them money.
Only in the last option is the resident likely to have much say about his treatment, what to eat for breakfast, etc. B'Zcut is willing to fight for the right of the more severely-disabled to be placed into smaller settings. This is the dirrection, in my opinion, that we have to push for. The large institutions need to be divided up, as was done in America and elsewhere.
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