Policy trends and their underlying ideologies are reviewed for Youth Aliyah, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, and the Ministry of Education and Culture. On the basis, the current status of research and evaluation, differential diagnosis and program assignment, and planning accountability are presented with recommendations for needed policy initiatives.
There is a tendency to overlook the father as a client. The reasons for this are varied, ranging from the organization and demographic make-up of the social work profession to stereotypes about fathers and a lack of knowledge about ethnic groups.
This paper reports research findings obtained regarding family relationships for three groups of adolescents: institutionalized, dependent children; noninstitutionalized, dependent children who are candidates for placement in institutions; and children living with their parents. It also describes a relatively novel, nonverbal, research instrument, the Family Relations Test, used to obtain the data. The conclusion is drawn that one of the major tasks of child care institutions is to restore children’s self-esteem and confidence-yet it is far from certain as to whether these settings are capable of accomplishing this important task.
This article presents data regarding the backgrounds and attitudes of 396 dependent children in Israel who had been living in boarding institutions for almost three years, and were at least 10 years old at the time of the research interview. Parents of the children were also interviewed, and background information regarding the family and its experience with placement was abstracted from welfare department records. This detailed information, collected nearly a decade ago, was then compared with several very recent Israeli studies of institutionalized dependent children and it was found that many problematic features of placement still persist. Among these are lack of long or short-term planning by welfare agencies, poor agency follow-up after placement, and little personal contact with either the child or his family. More older children were accepting placement than were younger children, and the majority of the parents did not contemplate the child’s return home, being quite satisfied with placement in the institution. The findings from this study should have direct implications for child welfare policy and practices.
Eliezer Jaffe discovers that politicians who mouth support for Jewish population growth apparently change their tune when it comes to enacting legislation to encourage large families.
Official government policies regulating the adoption of children in Israel have been very conservative. The vast majority of Israeli couples approved for adoption have been forced to look outside of Israel for infant children to adopt primarily due to the lack of eligible infants in Israel. The laws concerning adoption, the current statistical data and prospects for future foreign adoptions are discussed.
Perhaps of all the policy responses created by supply and demand factors in adoption work, one of the most controversial, or overlooked, concerns the definition of the the professional responsibility and services due to candidates for adoption who have been rejected and those who, having been approved, will have to wait years before they receive a child. To these categories we may now add a third category, those who are now ineligible to even apply. In a sense, the logistics of supply and demand in adoptions and the social policies formulated in response to this situation have resulted in the creation of a relatively large number of new clients for the social services.
Although computer technology and the field of human services may seem antithetical to many, a number of professionals have explored the potential usefulness of computers in social work. This article describes a study in which computers were used to determine placements for dependent children and then compares these placements with plans determined by traditional case conference methods.
On the need to establish a non-profit professional social service for international adoptions in Israel and end the government monopoly over this field of child welfare.
Relatively little research has been done on the effects of institution care on healthy adolescents, although this group comprises the bulk of institutionalized children. Findings are reported from a study in Israel of institutionalized adolescents compared with control groups of children awaiting such care, and of children in normal home circumstances.
The Jerusalem Post’s CHARLES HOFFMAN learns something about ‘what it’s really like to be adopted’.
Thousands of couples trying to adopt babies abroad are finding cold cash the only answer to government foot-dragging.
The new International Adoption Law is set to end the government’s monopoly. But what will take its place?
Couples here who have been unable to adopt a child are increasingly turning to intercountry adoptions.
Every year, hundreds of couples go abroad to adopt
Today, foster families have no legal status. The experts agree that legislation is needed to give them rights as well as obligations, writes Marcia Kretzmer
Is the introduction of surrogate motherhood a medical and legal milestone or does it open a Pandora’s box of ethical questions? Allison Kaplan Sommer explores both sides of the issue
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