Israel-Gaza War Fundraiser for Disability Families

Chimes Israel is a 33-year-old NGO that provides therapeutic daytime solutions for more than 1,400 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in 25 centers throughout Israel.  Our services and programs include early childhood rehabilitative care, after-school clubs, supported employment, leisure and enrichment programs, adult rehabilitative nursing care, community groups, and multifaceted mental health support services. Our mission is to do all we can to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities through cutting-edge professional services and programs. Our clients range in age from infant to elderly and are from all sectors of the population, regardless of ethnicity, religion, politics, nationality, age, or gender. 

Now that our centers have reopened after the initial crisis of the war, we have assessed the gaps in our service capabilities related to handling crises. Workers have told us that every security escalation causes floods of anxiety. This is because they do not have a plan, applicable skills, or tools for coping with the challenges. Recognizing the need to get through the trauma and become better prepared for other emergencies we decided to launch an organization-wide staff Resilience Training Program.  

The resilience training is underway and we are told that it is helping our employees improve their interpersonal communication, engage in better techniques for coping with stress, and better manage security vulnerabilities and crises. The program is helping our employees learn how to cope with stressful situations and intervene better in times of emergency. They are learning to better care for and impart this knowledge to our service recipients with disabilities at their cognitive levels.

For our staff members not directly affected by the war, the training is helping with the ongoing daily toll of caring for our dependent population. The work has a high burnout rate due to challenging workplace demands, difficult service recipient behavior, chronic stress, emotional exhaustion, low pay, and a lack of personal accomplishment.

Leading the training are professionals from NATAL (National Trauma Victims), a non-profit organization for raising trauma awareness across Israeli society. NATAL's team of facilitators includes therapists from mental health professions who are experts on stress, trauma, crisis intervention, and resilience. They have created a curriculum tailored to the individual needs of each Chimes Israel audience including executive management, center managers, and staff who work directly with people with disabilities. We have also designated one representative from each Chimes Israel center as the “resilience trustee,” to identify ongoing needs and build additional resilience programs for employees and service recipients. 

The program is not fully funded, so we are using donations to the Israel-Gaza War Fund through GlobalGiving to support this project.