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Introduction
Dr. Rami Sulimani, CEO Ashalim
The issue before us deals with questions associated with coping with
situations of Crisis, Loss and Bereavement. The reaction to such situations
and coping with them vary from one person to the next and is related
to one’s personality and environment of development. The articles in
this issue open a fascinating window to the strategies through which
individuals, families and organizations cope with their pain and regroup
in order to contain it or dwell on it and to come out of crisis reinforced.
Ashalim – is an organization that develops programs, services and
knowledge for children, youth, young adults and families in situations of
risk and distress, as well as for professionals working with them. Similar
to many other organizations, it is engaged in developing knowledge and
making it accessible in order to assist and alleviate, to the extent possible,
the difficult reality in which people happened to find themselves over the
course of their life.
Programs developed at Ashalim over the years in the field of coping with
crisis and trauma situations have received wide professional recognition
due to their results and impact both on the welfare system and on target
populations. Thus, for instance, the Hibuki (Huggsy) program, developed
following the Second Lebanon War and implemented in the educational
system, won international recognition when the government of Japan
decided to implement its professional principles following the devastating
earthquake of 2011. Similarly, the Hadrei Shalva (Serenity Rooms)
program, developed in 2002 to deal with continuous emergency and
trauma situations within educational frameworks in communities around
the Gaza Strip, in recent years won professional recognition when 25
local authorities picked it out of the wide array of programs presented
in the 360° Project Book – the national program for children and youth
at risk. These professional achievements were recently translated into
the development of an integrative model for resilience improvement and
treatment of distress and trauma casualties, in full cooperation with the