The Beit Noam
Daycare Center
The Beit Noam Daycare Center was established in Kiryat Ono in 1986, the initiative of parents of young adults with disabilities working in collaboration with Alin-Mossad Abrahams, Ilan Israel (Center branch) and the Ministry of Labor and Welfare.
The center provides services for 72 daycare participants aged 21 or older with the most complex intellectual and physical disabilities, most of whom are wheelchair users and some of whom have complex communication needs. Daycare participants come from all over the country – from Zichron Yaakov in the north to Yad Mordechai in the south.
The center is a daily therapeutic, rehabilitative, social and vocational framework that offers every participant a full and enriching life.
The participants are divided into groups of twelve participants and six staff members, with professional care staff who accompany each group. Each participant has a personal program that is checked and updated annually.
Among the activities offered by the center are a communal and social life, vocational training, one-to-one and group therapeutic meetings – art, music, animals, therapeutic dialogue, occupational therapy, speech therapy, physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, and snoezelen (sensory stimulation room). The activities are a means to develop and improve the daycare participants’ quality of life and provide each of them with enriching and fulfilling experiences.
The center serves as a beacon in its field, offering learning and development opportunities for professionals with the professional and committed staff who work there.
The Center's Unique Worldview
The Alin Beit Noam staff do not focus on disabilities, but rather on the person and their individual abilities. We believe that all human beings are born equal and are entitled to respect, rights and obligations, and the opportunity to live a full and satisfying life. Both staff and participants contribute to ensuring that this belief is put into practice each and every day in our daycare center.
Guiding Principles:
- The groups of participants are heterogeneous and include participants with different levels of disabilities.
- Activities are individually adapted for each participant according to their needs, desires and abilities.
- For genuine interactions with participants, we do not try to change them but instead create an environment that encourages activity. Creativity and initiative bring out their strengths and abilities and circumvent their weaknesses.
- Communication and self-expression are fundamental human rights, and participants must be supported in exercising them in different ways.
- The number of staff members is exceptionally high, with one staff member for every two participants.
- National service and pre-military service volunteers are an integral, significant part of the daycare center staff and allow for the accompaniment and assistance of every participant.
- All staff members, without exception (senior or new, academics and volunteers alike), perform all required educational and nursing tasks when necessary.
- The staff is involved in initiating and developing new work methods, assistive technological aids, and high-quality professional services for people with disabilities.
Day Care
Activities
The unique treatment groups have been taking place in Beit Noam for many years. In the framework of these groups, the participants are given the opportunity to express themselves, engage with their needs
For most of us, speech is something we take for granted. It is hard to imagine ourselves and our lives without the ability to speak. However, for many of our participants, the speech that is so familiar to us is impossible for them
Beit Noam participants have significant inborn impairments. Despite this, the Beit Noam staff does their utmost to take the disability into account, circumvent the difficulties and improve functioning
The hydrotherapy pool is part of the Beit Noam Daycare Center, specially adapted for people with disabilities.
The pool can be accessed directly from the street by stroller and wheelchair, and it is possible to enter the water using a special wheelchair.
In order to provide each person with solutions to meet their needs (cognitive, emotional, physical and social), each participant has a specially tailored personal program that includes various therapeutic, social and vocational activities.
The goal is to provide each of the participants with the opportunity to find a way to be maximally involved in all areas using the tools available to us and to maintain a daily routine.
Occupation is a way for everyone to reinforce and realize individual goals such as acquiring skills and work habits and improving self-image, satisfaction, calmness, security and independence.
When a Beit Noam participant is asked, “What do you like to do most of all in Beit Noam?” their answer is, “to work.” Work, including their occupation activities, carries a huge significance for them.
There are a variety of animals in the Beit Noam petting zoo that welcome our participants with unconditional affection and love.
The petting zoo offers a therapeutic space that activates all the senses, with participants hearing the animals, seeing them, feeling and smelling them. The participants care for the animals and experience taking responsibility for another creature, a unique experience many do not experience elsewhere.
Art is a powerful therapeutic tool. Art in all its many forms can help address emotional conflicts and answer the need to improve self-value and self-image.
This includes techniques such as drawing, silk painting and sculpting.
The use of materials and color helps break through barriers. Thoughts, emotions and feelings are expressed in a fascinating creative process.
Music is a powerful tool by its very nature that enables self-expression, listening and creativity, and affects mental and emotional states.
It is a spontaneous form of expression that is often easier to learn than verbal communication. It is a universal language that conveys emotions and can be used to treat emotional difficulties. Music-loving staff members employ music in various settings with the participants.
Once a week, a group of Beit Noam participants meets, brought together by the band.
How did this all begin?
A very creative man of musical talent, Einan Perel, came to Beit Noam and decided that he wanted to do something a little different.
In his modest way and with the utmost respect for the group participants, he began a process of writing and composing songs.
Beit Noam has a snoezelen room where the participants come to partake in a variety of different activities.
The name snoezelen is the combination of two Dutch words: “snuffelen,” meaning ‘to smell,” and “soezen,” meaning “to nap,” and is otherwise known as a “multi-sensory environment.”
The room is designed to provide participants with a calm, comfortable and safe environment. The snoezelen room is entirely lined with mattresses, and on entering the room, one is presented with the opportunity of entering a new world, separate from the one outside.
