Section archive - Informal Education

On April 30th, after a difficult and thoughtful process, the URJ Camps, and a few other Jewish overnight camps announced their decisions not to open this summer. In total, as of April 30th, almost 20 Jewish overnight camps will not be opening for 2020. It is unprecedented and painful for everyone involved. There are an additional 144 Jewish overnight camps, sharing their pain and sorrow over this decision.

To mark Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month (#JDAIM) in February, ALEH, Israel’s network of care for children with severe complex disabilities and an international advocate for disability inclusion and equity, is launching its new ‘ALEH Bechinuch’ disability inclusion programming at seven Jewish schools in New York and South Florida.

Children and adolescents in residential-care facilities often have lower academic achievements that their counterparts who are raised at home. Traditionally, residential programs do not prioritize academic achievements, especially at the high-school level, a situation detrimental to their chances to enter institutes of higher education. The Israel Ministry of Education decided to implement a policy change to affect the overall ecology of youth villages (Israeli residential schools), aimed at emphasizing high school academic achievements as a key to future success. This attitudinal change led to the development of after-school study centers or evening classes within the village, applying non-formal teaching and learning methods in a relaxed atmosphere. Additionally, various support systems were developed in youth villages, all geared toward helping adolescents excel in meeting the challenges of high school.

The present study focused on students who were exposed to terror‐related homicide with the aim of investigating the contribution of school climate resources to their resilience. Since resilience is associated not only with fewer negative outcomes, but also with positive change, the contribution of schools was studied as both inhibiting post‐traumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and enhancing post‐traumatic growth (PTG). A mixed‐methods research design was used. The participants included 117 (52% girls) high school students (mean age = 14.54; SD = 1.49). Twenty‐five of them were interviewed in addition to responding to the research questionnaires. Different aspects of the school climate were found to be associated with students' PTS and PTG, yielding two overarched factors explaining the school's role as a protective resource: sheltering and supporting. The former is associated with fewer PTS and the latter with higher PTG. The use of different resources for different forms of resilience is discussed.