Orr Shalom programs

Orr Shalom's broad range of homes and diversified programs are tailored to meet the individual needs of each child in our care.

Orr Shalom's Residential Programs
Community Family Group Homes
Friendship Home (for Israel's 'lost boys')
Teenage Girls Homes
Goldschmidt Home
Therapeutic Foster Family Program
Foster Family Program (Central Region)
Graduates Program
Avi Fund

Other Programs
Parents Child Center
Beit Hatzayar
After School Programs
Ha Zula (Vintage Clothing Store)
Map of Orr Shalom Homes throughout Israel

Orr Shalom's Residential Programs

National Family Group Homes
Orr Shalom cares for children from troubled family backgrounds from all regions of Israel who cannot live in close proximity to their biological families. Orr Shalom currently operates three national group homes in Mevasseret, each home cares for 9 - 11 children.

Click here to read Doron's story

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Community Family Group Homes
Orr Shalom considers it vitally important to strengthen the connections between the children that are removed from their biological families and their community.

Community-based care facilitates an easier transition for the child and encourages an ongoing, active participation of the child's biological family in his or her therapy.

Since 1992, Orr Shalom has established 23 community family group homes in Eilat, Be'er Sheva, Herzliya, Holon, Jerusalem, Haifa, Abu Ghosh (for Arab children), Ashkelon and Ma'aleh Adumim. In the fall of 1999, we opened our first community home for religiously observant children in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot. And in 2002, we launched our first home for Beduin children in Rahat.

Click here to read Perach's story

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Friendship Home (for Israel's 'lost boys')
Orr Shalom's first Friendship Home (Reut) for boys, ages 6-14, was established in 1984 to care for 12 children. Currently, 42 boys live on two separate campuses in Jerusalem.The main campus includes a special education school licensed by the Ministry of Education. These boys come from psychiatric wards or from the streets where drugs and crime are their constant companions. Today, Reut is the only intensive care facility in Israel for boys this age. In addition, four Orr Shalom boys from our Foster Care program attend the school and are treated on an outpatient basis at Reut.

Click here to read an excerpt of a letter from the school principal

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Teenage Girls Homes
Since 1995, Orr Shalom has opened six homes for teenage girls in Eilat, Be'er Sheva, Herzliya, Mevasseret and Ashkelon. Each home accommodates seven girls, ages 14-18.

These girls have suffered such traumatic emotional, physical and sexual abuse that they are unable to integrate into our regular family group homes. By placing these girls with peers who have undergone similar experiences, we can reduce their sense of isolation, enable them to enjoy the benefits of group therapy and tailor programs that address their specific needs.

Click here to read Shoshana's story

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Goldschmidt Home
In the spring of 2004, Orr Shalom opened the first home in Israel for girls ages 9-13, with especially severe behavioral problems due to extreme sexual abuse and/or neglect.

Goldschmidt Home is an intensive care facility(analogous to our Friendship Home model) for young teenage girls. Despite their tender age, their unspeakable pasts have triggered a wide range of problems, psychiatric disorders and severe emotional problems such as sexual promiscuity, lack of boundaries and suicide. These girls need a warm supportive environment hours a 24 day. This home is their last chance to rehabilitate and thus, improve their lives.

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Therapeutic Foster Family Program
This program was initiated in the fall of 1993 for children who have special needs that cannot be met in a group home or in any other institution within the child welfare network. Orr Shalom locates foster parents willing to care for 1-2 children in their own homes, and provides the training and ongoing supervision that make the placement a success. Currently there are 54 children living with 30 foster families.

Click here to read Shmuel's story

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Foster Family Program (Central Region)
Orr Shalom assumed responsibility for this program that encompasses the central region of Israel from Hadera through Gadera in 2004. This program provides warm loving homes for children with physical and/or psychological limitations, unable to thrive in other group programs. Orr Shalom locates foster parents willing to care for a small number of these children in their own homes and provides these families with the training and on-going supervision that makes the placement a success. Currently, there are 750 children in this program living in 480 Foster Family Homes.

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Graduates Program
Orr Shalom has set up interim apartments for some of our 18 year-old graduates who need a way station before leaving our programs. These young adults are not quite ready to be "thrust out" into the adult world, and/or do not have a family to return to.
To help ease their transition, Orr Shalom has developed a special individualized program for them. They can take part in courses, such as hairdressing or computers, that enable them to gain life skills. They can complete their matriculation by taking supplementary courses while receiving tutoring.

The program combines part-time employment, army service, vocational or educational training. The graduates are supported by professional staff including a live-in social worker/counselor and a program coordinator who guide them through this period while helping them to adjust to an independent life of their own. Each graduate receives a monthly living allowance and is expected to supplement it with employment or an army stipend.

Orr Shalom's new graduate program is just one more means to reach out to our young adults and help them on their path to becoming productive members of society.

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Avi Fund
This Fund, in memory of Avi Rosenberg, z"l, was created to help the graduates of Orr Shalom who are inducted into the Israeli army. Avi, the son of a member of the Board of Directors of Orr Shalom, lost his life in a traffic accident in 2000.

Avi Rosenberg was a young man who cared about children and was concerned about the many children in Israel who do not have homes in which to grow up. Avi admired the work of Orr Shalom in helping these children. Accordingly, this Fund was established in order to perpetuate his memory by assisting the children who graduate from Orr Shalom.

The AVI Fund makes it possible for Orr Shalom to continue to be a source of support for the children that grew up in its homes after they reach the age of 18 when government funding for them ceases. It is a cruel irony that the children that Orr Shalom raises are once again left without any support when they reach the age of 18. The AVI Fund addresses this problem.

The AVI Fund allows Orr Shalom to do what all parents do when their children are drafted into the army, to help them before, during and after their service. The AVI Fund provides driving lessons so they can get a driver's license, lets them purchase the personal equipment that inductees customarily bring into the army with them, provides them with pocket money from time to time and allows them to be the same as all the other young soldiers with whom they serve.

In addition, the AVI Fund assists them after they are released from the army by paying for vocational training or higher education.

Many children have been helped by the AVI Fund in many different ways. This fund, unencumbered by government restriction, allows Orr Shalom to help each child personally and specifically in the way that help is needed. In a very important way, it levels the playing field for children who do not have parents to help them. It lets them begin their Army service on the right foot and to end their Army service with opportunities open to them.

The AVI Fund is a segregated fund within Orr Shalom. Every shekel in the fund is used to help the children. There are NO administrative overhead, fundraising or other operational costs paid by the AVI Fund. Providing assistance to the children is the one and only purpose for which the AVI Fund may be used.

For information or to contribute to the AVI Fund, please call (02) 533-7059, Ext. 112

Fax: (02) 533-7074, Email: info@orr-shalom.co.il

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Other Programs

Parents Child Center
In 2004, Orr Shalom opened its first Parent Child Center in Eilat in response to The Ministry of Social Affairs recent emphasis on preventing the removal of Israeli children at risk from their biological homes. This Center currently services approximately 100 people. Through a well planned highly tailored program with minimal intervention, each family member participates in an individualized therapeutic program, the aim being to keep the families together. A similar Parent Child Center will soon begin operation in Kiryat Malachi.

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Beit Hatzayar
Orr Shalom operates a special after school program for severely disturbed adolescents aged 13-18, in cooperation with Jerusalem’s Ministry of Social Affairs and the The Ministry of Education. The after school program for 30 children operates daily from 1pm - 6pm, eight of these children then return to a special dormitory, where they are cared for by our staff of counselors and other professionals.

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After School Programs
Orr Shalom will soon open its first therapeutic after school shelter for 15 boys, ages 8-14, with severe behavioral problems who cannot join other community programs because of their extremely traumatic backgrounds, boys who would normally be spending their afternoons on the street with gangs. The aim of Jerusalem’s Social Services Department and the Ministry of Education is to give children who should be permanently removed from the care of their biological parents an after school framework that will provide them with a supportive environment until bedtime.

Orr Shalom's model proposes a therapeutic shelter that will include close supervision of the boys, work with their biological parents and therapy. These clubs will provide the boys with a warm meal, assistance in their homework, a chance to take part in basketball practice with Jerusalem's Hapoel Basketball Team and a variety of social activities. This program will boost their motivation, performance and involvement at school and help them deal with their emotional, environmental and family problems. Hopefully, these boys will be able to join more normative after school programs in their communities and thus move towards the fundamental goal of this program, preventing their out of home placements.

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Ha Zula (Vintage Clothing & Buried Treasures Store)
In February of 2000, Orr Shalom opened a vintage clothing store in the Mevasseret Shopping Mall to the general public. Adolescent girls from our five Mevasseret homes are trained and employed by a manager/psychologist in proper work ethics, habits, responsibility, interacting with the public, inventory control and mathematics (how to give proper change). The skills and self-confidence that these young women acquire at the store is a priceless and precious value added commodity for their futures.

Where are we?
Located in the bottom parking lot level of the Mevasseret Harel Mall, next to the car wash - look for the signs overhead.

Opening Hours
Ha Zula is open from Sunday to Thursday 11:30 - 18:30 and on Friday from 10:30 - 14:00. Donations of clothing and household goods in top condition are most appreciated. All proceeds from sales at Ha Zula benefit Orr Shalom's children.

For further information, contact Ha Zula at 02- 579-5248.

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