The Children’s Home is a special-care rehabilitation boarding school in the heart of the Kfar Yehezkel settlement, located in a warm and flourishing valley.

 

 

What is Bet Singer?

Bet Singer is a Non-Government Organization (NGO) that manages and operates various arrangements specializing in caring for at-risk youth in the Jezreel Valley and northern parts of Israel.. The Children’s Home – a boarding school in Kfar Yehezkel – as approximately 90 full-time resident children between the ages of 5 and 18.

As far back as the 1930s Henrietta Szold ensured there would be land reserved for establishment of the boarding school, intended to house the youngsters of the Youth Aliyah brought to Israel from Nazi Germany. The school was established in 1942 at the height of the Second World war.   Children were brought to the school from Haifa and the school’s surroundings. After establishment of the State of Israel, the boarding school transformed into the special-care rehabilitation boarding school for at-risk children under the control of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services.

In addition to the school operated in Kfar Yehezkel, the NGO operates an additional facility, “Beteinu” (Our Home), for 10 additional children. It is located in Kibbutz Merav in the Gilboa region. The children in the Children’s Home  are integrated into the activities of Kibbutz Kfar Yehezkel and each child has a host family. Graduates of the school who so desire are accepted as full members of the kibbutz. An additional group of 10 youngsters, cared for and supervised  by Bet Singer, for rehabilitation reasons, live with their  foster families in the geographical area near Kfar Yehezkel.   The school offers the geographical area a unique solution that has proven to be the most efficient and effective for the children educated there. The professional staff at Bet Singer has developed an  approach to special care, proven to be a leading one in Israel, that integrates animals as a rehabilitation aid for the treatment of a wide range of personal distress – both physical and mental.

Who becomes a resident at Bet Singer?

All the children at Bet Singer have been referred by the Services for Children and Youth of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services after having been extracted from their parents’ home by their local community social services. At times it is with the permission of the parents, and at times it requires a court order to take them out of their home. These are children with especially distressing life stories who have been exposed to very severe family problems, to various types of abuse, and have had no one able to supply them with their basic needs.

The  Structure and Vision of Bet Singer

The children arrive broken, distraught, and are in great need of  long-term intensive rehabilitation treatment. The initial aim and goal of our staff is an attempt to grant the children what every human deserves – a home. This means not only a roof over their heads, protection and food, but also conditions for personal development, for their welfare, for an education, and the ability to develop interpersonal relationships. The ability to develop relationships and have trust in others was basically destroyed in these youngsters as a result of the harmful family environment they lived in and the severe experiences they suffered.