Special Needs Educational Resource Center (Jewish Family & Children Services)The Educational Resource Center, located at Beit Chana Women's Teacher Training College, is a school for preschool age through high school children with complex physical and mental disabilities who might otherwise not receive schooling. There is also an after school tutoring center, a family information, training, and referral center, and a teacher and student-teacher training center at Beit Chana. The Special Needs Initiative is a collaborative effort of professionals from Gordon College in Haifa, Israel, Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, lay leaders in the Boston area, and students and staff from Beit Chana who participate in visits and videoconferences regularly. The Initiative provides special adaptive equipment, medications, treatment, resource materials, and toys for children with special needs. The ERC also serves younger children through Project Bereshit, a collaborative project with Hospital 6 which provides information and support to parents of babies, toddlers, and pre-schoolers with significant health concerns and/or disabilities. More than 60 special needs children, their parents, siblings, and grandparents participate in the ERC’s programs, improving the quality of life of more than 150 people in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. The Initiative focuses on community inclusion, in the Jewish community and the community-at-large, through community awareness.
Judy Wolf and Susan Wolf-Fordham, co-chairs of the project in Bostonin partnership with Jewish Family and Children’s Service, directed by Sy Friedland, continue to raise thousands of dollars-worth of donations for adaptive equipment, clothing, food, and medicines and are in close collaboration with the team at Bet-Hana.
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