The Parent-Child CenterS
Each year, the Parent-Child Centers serve approximately 630 disadvantaged families with children ages six and younger. Reflecting our service area’s diverse demographics, the Center proudly serves families from secular and religious backgrounds, various faiths, including Jews, Muslims, and Christians; the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, as well as asylum seekers and foreign workers.
Many new parents never experienced healthy parental models in their own lives and lack the skills and resources to create a nurturing family environment. This situation leads to an elevated rate of neglect in our service area, with children lacking the level of supervision and care necessary for proper development.
A large majorities of the families who use the services of the parent-child center are single mothers. In Israel, 8.9% of families are single-mother households. Single mothers enjoy far less social support than their married counterparts, placing them at higher risk of developing maternal depression and exacerbating already existing parental difficulties.
The Parent-Child Center uses three main routes of intervention – therapeutic play, counseling, and community outreach.
Therapeutic Play implements interactive activities designed to promote cognitive stimulation in children and facilitate positive interactions between them and their parents. The staff introduces parents to age-appropriate games, toys, books, and ways to use them
appropriately in order to
develop meaningful connections with their children.
The Center’s staff offers support, including individual therapy for children and parents, dyadic parent-child therapy, couples therapy, art therapy, and more. Specialists in early childhood education and development offer counseling to parents interested in receiving advice and information on specific topics relevant to their child, and to the early parent-child bond.
The Parent-Child Center’s staff shares their expertise with the community by offering regular lectures about parenthood and early childhood development and inviting experts to give lectures on topics including setting boundaries, appropriate foods, sleeping habits, hygiene, and the importance of early childhood play.