Cultural Competence in Jerusalem Municipality

Cultural Competency for On-Call Emergency Welfare Workers

What do you do when there’s an emergency late at night that requires welfare services? This is exactly what the on-call workers of the Jerusalem Municipality’s Welfare Department are for. The on-call workers, who are all social workers, respond to a multitude of incidents, including: delivering difficult news, domestic violence cases, treating youth who have run away, and answering emergency telephone calls on various issues. About 150 on-call workers took part in cultural competency workshops via Zoom – some 100 on-call workers (in three workshops at the end of June) who work in West Jerusalem, and another about 50 workers who provide services in East Jerusalem, in a special workshop which took place on July 8 delivered in Arabic for drives of the east of the city (on 8.7.21).

workshop for west Jerusalem on call workers

Workshop for on-call workers

During the workshops participants raised inter-cultural challenges they faced when they’re on-call, which is different than their everyday work – lack of familiarity with the callers and their cultural characteristics; the rapid transitioning between the vastly different cultures and backgrounds of callers; the sometimes-opposing approaches between welfare and community services; dealing with callers’ sometimes first encounters with welfare services; the objections that arise on the background of cultural perceptions versus the authority of the social worker to carry out legal orders, and more.

One on-call worker told that she had to inform an ultra-Orthodox family about the mother’s death on Friday afternoon, right before the Sabbath. She was surprised with the family’s preoccupation with burying the mother as quickly as possible, and that they weren’t open to her attempts at grief support. Another on-call worker recounted the time that she tried to move an elderly man living in unfit conditions to a shelter, and how there was significant opposition from the family.

Participants were given tools to enable them to have a culturally competent and effective encounter: to think before the encounter what cultural sensitivities they may encounter and what is the effective response to those sensitivities and tools for deepening intercultural dialogue that helps facilitate effective and sensitive care.

שתי השאלות

Two questions – helping social workers be culturally competent

This is the first workshop we’ve led for on-call workers. We hope that future workshops will preserve and strengthen this knowledge and skills.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their ongoing support of Cultural Competence in Jerusalem!

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Another Step in Assimilating Principles of Cultural Competency in the Jerusalem Municipality’s Welfare Department

We’re continuing our efforts to assimilate cultural competence in the municipal welfare department in Jerusalem. We’re concentrating on the western region of Jerusalem, which covers a large and diverse area – from Haredi Har Nof and Bayit Vagan to Beit Hakerem, which is considered a secular neighborhood, to Kiryat Hayovel, which includes a highly diverse population of Haredim and secular communities, to the city center, which also includes a broad spectrum of communities, including asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea.

the forums facilitator at the jicc

The Forum facilitatorד at the JICC

The meetings included discussions with the regional director. She is in charge of the welfare offices, the rehabilitation centers, and the training centers. She spoke about the activities of the different professional forums. At each monthly meeting, all professionals from the different neighborhoods meet to discuss the same issue. For example, there are forums that deal with aging, violence, families, authority, eligibility, youth, disabilities and more …

Each forum is accompanied by the forum coordinator and a facilitator, both of them social workers at one of the regional offices. At these meetings, they raise professional dilemmas related to their meetings with clients and the other employees in the region. We decided that this is an ideal forum to advance cultural competency – if each session would also include intercultural aspects that emerging from the cases they bring up they could better assimilate concepts of cultural competency in the different welfare offices and associated centers.

talking about cultural competence with the social workers

talking about cultural competence with the social workers

The first phase of the process was conducted at the Jerusalem Intercultural Center. At that meeting, held on December 22, 19, all forums and forum coordinators were given tools to examine case studies, raised by the participants from different forums, from a cultural competence standpoint. One of the tools is the three-question model developed at the JICC:

  1. What are the possible interpretations? What possible cultural mores does it touch on?
  2. Have you experienced a similar incident before? How did you act then?
  3. What would you suggest to do at the event presented?

Since then, we’ve worked with them in a number of steps. The second step was work with the forums themselves. Preparatory meetings were held with the director and facilitator of the forum in which they design a meeting with joint facilitation. The third stage is the meeting with the forum itself. So far, we have met with the Authority Forum – employees of the Welfare  Department, who are not social workers and who accompany and assist families in various areas. We spoke with them about their ability to be go-betweens, providing social workers with important cultural information on the one hand and those requesting assistance on the other. Another meeting was held with the Eligibility Workers Forum, which is responsible for subsidizing activities and providing assistance to eligible offices. One of the issues raised in the meeting was how to deal with a person who comes thinking that he deserves assistance (after receiving incorrect information from his friends), but in fact is not eligible according to the guidelines, and how our culture meets (and deals with) that of the person who is asking for assistance. Additional meetings have been scheduled with the Social Workers for the Elderly Forum, and the Family Social Workers Forum.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their continued support of cultural competency in Jerusalem since its inception over a decade ago.

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An Evening of Cultural Competence for Health Care Rights Volunteers from the Jerusalem Municipality

On Tuesday, November 5, we held a special evening for Health Care Rights Volunteers, which was organized by the Community Services Department of the Jerusalem Municipality, with an emphasis on cultural Competency.

The volunteers come from various organizations, such as Santé Israël‘s Bikur Olim project, Kivunim from Hadassah Hospital, the Segula unit at Sha’are Zedek Medical Center, and more, listened to a lecture from our own Aliza Shabo-Hayut, who described the experience of a fictitious immigrant who encounters cultural barriers everywhere – in the education system, on public transport, at the National Insurance Institute and in the hospital. She also described the tools for cultural competence among volunteers are extremely important in helping immigrants and those from different cultures obtain their health rights and navigate the Israeli health system. The lecture received excellent responses and the volunteers noted the importance of the topic and the contribution of the lecture to their work.

Aliza talk to volunteers

Aliza speaking to volunteers

After the lecture specific complex inter-cultural situations were demonstrated through playback theater.

 Volunteers night - show time

Volunteers night – show time

The choice of cultural competency as the main theme of a special evening recognizing volunteers is part of the process of assimilating cultural competence in the municipal Community Services Department that we’ve been leading in recent years.

 Volunteers night - playback time

Volunteers night – playback time

Many thanks to Sarit Lipkin Wolf from the Community Services Department, for organizing the evening, and to Marie Avigad, coordinator of Sante Israel, who was part of the steering committee for the evening and who brought the subject to the fore. And of course, many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation, for its continued support of Cultural Competency over the past decade.

Here’s the post from the Sante Israel Facebook page (in Hebrew and French):

Many thanks to the Pharmadom Foundation for its continued support of Santé Israël over the years, and to the Jerusalem Foundation for its support to the JICC cultural competence program.

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2019-11-16T10:24:20+00:00November 15th, 2019|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Jerusalem Municipality|

Celebrating a Decade of Cultural Competency and Looking to the Future

Over the past year we, together with the Alyn Rehabilitative Hospital, the Jerusalem Foundation, and numerous partners in the field, have been celebrating a decade of cultural competency. (You can read about this here, herehere and here.)

On Monday, December 17, 2018 we held the final event – a panel entitled, “Where do we go from here?”

"Where now?" with leaders in the field

“Where now?” with leaders in the field

Panelists included: Nawal Aliyan – Nubader, from the Novader organization, Shaher Shabane, Chair of the Parents Forum for Children with Special Needs in East Jerusalem, Ariel Kandel, from the Qualita Organization for French-speaking Olim, Ella Mano, Director of Public Health Services and Early Childhood from the Jerusalem Municipality, and Dr. Maurit Be’eri, who began the journey with us a decade ago, and who today is the Director of ALYN.

“It was both exciting and sad to hear the personal stories from East Jerusalem,” noted our own Dr. Michal Schuster in her Facebook post afterward. “Parents who are not aware of their children’s rights, who, because of the stigma [against people with disabilities] are not integrated into society and are closed in at home.”

Ariel Kandel, spoke about the French-speaking population’s difficulties here. While they might not be as severe as those from East Jerusalem, there are difficulties nonetheless – language difficulties, economic difficulties as new immigrants, shock from Israeli bureaucracy, and more. Ariel told of someone who went to the emergency room with a headache, and the doctor told him that there’s nothing to worry about and that he take a pill. The man understood that he had a tumor…..

Relating issues and complexities of cultural competency

Relating issues and complexities of cultural competency

It is difficult for service providers as well. Ella Mano told about the issues and conflicts nurses in Well-Baby Clinics are facing now, as they try to prevent the spread of measles, even though the very nature of the Well-Baby Clinics must be culturally competent, in order for the clinics to gain the trust of the parents.

Dr. Be’eri described the frustration that jump started the process in 2008 at ALYN, when they stopped and started to ask why patients weren’t advancing from checkup to checkup, and were even getting worse. And they decided to see what they were doing wrong.

Sharing with other cultural competency professionals

Sharing with other cultural competency professionals

What a change the hospital has gone through.

“Lots of circles were closed today, and I hope it’s the start of Cultural Competency, the 3rd Generation,” summed up Michal.

And of course, many thanks to our partners in the journey – the ALYN Rehabilitative Hospital, the Jerusalem Foundation, and our many partners in action.

 

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A Decade of Cultural Competency – Digitization of Health Care and Other Worlds in Haredi Society

Today many people manage much of their health care needs electronically – over the Internet, through mobile apps and various social media. Medical information, consultation with doctors and nurses and making appointments – all of these actions are often done today online or via mobile apps. How does the Haredi population, which often eschews the open Internet, deal with these means of communication? How do they receive information, which many in the non-Haredi world have instant access to simply by filling out telephone numbers or e-mail addresses and receiving occasional updates?

Our fifth lecture in the celebrating a decade of Cultural Competency (see here, here, and here for former meetings) focused on the Haredi sector – how it relates to the Internet and social media, relating to the world of health care and others. The speaker was Shmuel Drilman, Haredi social activist and CEO of the Webetter digital company.

Shmuel Drilman lecturign

Shmuel Drilman lecturing

He spoke about how so much of our daily lives revolves around the Internet, smartphone apps and social media, from health care to a range of other services, and how the Haredi world – which is often closed to technological advancements – deals with the challenges of everyday life in the 21st century. He spoke about possible ways that the health care world can make information available to Haredi society, without compromising its online systems or the Haredi society’s cultural norms.

Many thanks to the ALYN Rehabilitative Hospital for their partnership and hosting of this series of lectures. And of course, many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its strategic partnership in cultural competency over the last decade!

Here’s the Facebook post on the meeting:

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Celebrating a Decade of Cultural Competency: New Practical Uses for Old Traditions: The Ethiopian Case

It’s incredible that we’ve been leading efforts to increase cultural competency for the past 10 years. To celebrate, as we’ve described here and here, we’re hosting a series of lectures in partnership with the ALYN Rehabilitative Hospital and the Jerusalem Foundation. The latest lecture was on Monday, October 15, 2018. In honor of the upcoming Sigd Holiday, which will take place on November 7, the lecture focused on the source of the holiday, and enabled a closer look at different traditions that the Ethiopian community in Israel brings to society. This community had been disconnected from the rest of the Jewish world for more than 2,000 years until coming to Israel, and still preserves its ancient traditions while also developing new ones.

Yuvi lecturing

Yuvi lecturing

The lecturer was Ms. Yuvi Tashome-Katz, who was born in Ethiopia and came to Israel via Sudan. Today Yuvi is a social entrepreneur and activist, with twenty years’ experience in community work and counseling, and today is a member of the southern city of Gadera’s city council. In recognition of her social activities, Yuvi was chosen to light one of the ceremonial torches on the 2011 Independence Day celebrations. Later that year she was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Initiatives and Innovation and the Matanel Prize for Groundbreaking Leadership.   

Lecturing to a full house

Lecturing to a full house

In addition to the Sigd holiday, Yuvi spoke about how women learned about womanhood and parenting from the ‘Women’s House’ – a place women stayed during ‘menstruation holiday,’ as well as for 40 days after birth. From a young age teenagers were shown how to care for babies, nursing, and more. Children were taught to strengthen their abilities, and tasks around the house and in the fields were assigned according to their abilities. In addition, information about medicinal herbs, nutrition and other health-related issues was passed along orally from one to another.

ALYN’s lecture hall was full to the gills, and the 50 members of the audience had a fascinating lecture. The participants were impressed by the sheer amount of knowledge the Ethiopian elders had, and how much knowledge Israeli society missed out on. Participants were enthusiastic to invite Yuvi back, to help them better understand how this knowledge can help the therapeutic process.

Many thanks to Yuvi, to ALYN, and of course, to the Jerusalem Foundation for its ongoing support of cultural competency since its inception!

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Celebrating a Decade of Cultural Competence

It’s really been 10 years, a decade since we began our Cultural Competency project in the health system. In March 2008 we held what turned out to be the first conference on  Cultural Competency at the ALYN Rehabilitative Hospital. In the 10 years since, we, and ALYN, have been trailblazers in cultural competency in Israel. ALYN was the first hospital to strive for full cultural competence on an everyday level, and we have become national leaders in cultural competency not only in the health care system, but in a range of different areas – from the work place to welfare and other municipal departments.

Dr. Maurit Be'ere and Daud Alian, addressing the first lecture celebrating a decade of Cultural Competency

Dr. Maurit Be’ere and Daud Alian, addressing the first lecture celebrating a decade of Cultural Competency

We decided to celebrate this accomplishment with a series of lectures on Cultural  Competency. The first focused on a lecture by Daud Alian, Director of the Atta’a Assistance Center for the Rights of Palestinian East Jerusalem Residents, on accessibility of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to health, welfare and education services.

The audience, listening attentively

The audience, listening attentively

ALYN’s lecture hall was full. Dr. Adit Dayan, Director of Community Projects from the Jerusalem Foundation, our strategic partner in Cultural Competency since its inception, opened the conference, along with Dr. Maurit Be’ere, Director of ALYN and the person responsible for bring cultural competency to the hospital, and Tal Cohen, who today is the coordinator for cultural competence at ALYN.

We can’t thank the Jerusalem Foundation enough for their partnership over the years.

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Palestinian Municipal Social Workers Learning Hebrew

We’ve told you here and here the importance of learning the ‘other’s’ language. Hebrew-speakers learning Arabic, Arabic-speakers learning Hebrew. Our MiniActive volunteers have been studying Hebrew for the past two years, and haven’t stopped singing the praises of the course.

Studying Hebrew with Medabrot Ivrit (illustration)

Studying Hebrew with Medabrot Ivrit (illustration)

Given this success, answering a request from Palestinian social workers, from different branches of the municipal welfare office in East Jerusalem, to offer courses in Hebrew. These courses are important for them professionally in their interactions with their colleagues and the overall welfare system. Like the courses for the MiniActive women, these courses were also given by the Medabrot Ivrit (Speaking Hebrew) volunteer-based group.

Thirty-four women participated in 2 courses, 2 levels of Hebrew. The women met for 3 hours each time, for 28 meetings. They ran from 9 March to 6 July.

There are a number of success stories from this course. One social worker, who’s been working in the municipal system for 10 years, told her class how she was able to write a report in Hebrew by herself for the first time. This is one example of how these classes are enabling Palestinian women – especially professionals – to be more independent, and to be able to communicate better and more effectively with the Hebrew-speaking system. It is part of our efforts to make Jerusalem culturally competent – enabling all populations to better access – and demand when necessary – the rights that are guaranteed them by law.

The Jerusalem Foundation was a full partner to this effort, in connecting, designing, and eventually in providing the required funds.

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Cultural Competency in Rights Realization Citywide

Why do Arab residents from East Jerusalem utilize volunteer rights centers in West Jerusalem? What’s the difference between a Haredi person’s usage of B’Ezrat Hashem (With God’s help) or Bli Neder (God willing)? And how would you deal with these questions if faced with a real-life situation?

Listening to a very interesting lecture

Listening to a very interesting lecture

Some 30 volunteers who work in the Municipality’s rights realization centers from throughout the city participated in introduction to cultural competency workshops resented by our Director of the Cultural Competency Desk, Orna Shani, on April 30.  This workshop focused not on the specific answers to these questions, but rather on how to handle the range of cultures and ethnicities that are served by the municipal rights centers. Rights centers are operated by the municipal welfare department, part of the Social Services Division of the Jerusalem Municipality that is undergoing a process of becoming culturally competent. You can read more about this process here and here.

The volunteers learned about the principles of cultural competency, about different meanings of common phrases that often seem to mean the same thing, about what to do when a volunteer has pre-conceived notions about a particular group of people, the different types of requests from different types of people, and more. All in a process to help more of Jerusalem’s diverse populations gain access to rights guaranteed them by law.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its ongoing support of Cultural Competency in Jerusalem.

 

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Continuing Cultural Competency Training at the Municipal Welfare Department

As difficult as it is, one of our overarching goals is to make Jerusalem a culturally competent city. This also includes, of course, entire Jerusalem Municipality culturally competent. You can read here about our initial training for workers in the welfare department. We’ve just finished a Training the Trainers course for 10 Welfare Department workers, who join the 15  graduates of the first cohort, which took place in November – December of 2016. This 4-session course enabled participants to conduct cultural competency workshops for the entire Welfare Department.

Community Service Department

Community Service Department

Participants learned how to lead cultural competency training, including, of course, the main principles of cultural competency. We covered a number of cultural and ethnicity-based issues that welfare department professionals encounter on a regular basis. Through discussions and special videos that we developed for the course, we introduced a number of case studies. Participants then learned from these case studies and evaluated them so they could use them in their work.

They will also be in charge of assimilating these principles throughout the year.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their continuing support of the cultural competency project in Jerusalem.
And here’s the post in Hebrew of the first meeting:

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