Resilience During Crises
Youth Futures - One family, a strong home-front
During times of crisis, Youth Futures provides a wide support network for its participants throughout Israel. The close relationship with the children and their parents enables the teams to identify and analyze the emerging needs and challenges in real time, and provide appropriate, immediate responses.
The program’s staff are skilled and experienced in strengthening the personal and familial resilience of the beneficiaries during times of crises and emergencies. For instance, the staff in the southern towns – particularly the Gaza envelope – assist the children and their families during times of increased military tension.
Facing the COVID-19 Crisis with Youth Futures
In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic created a global health crisis. The virus brought with it many challenges: uncertainty; financial difficulties; and the absence of constant, consistent frameworks – increasing the risk-factors among the program beneficiaries. During this period, Youth Futures assisted its participating families to overcome the crisis in a manner appropriate to their individual needs. On an organizational level, Youth Futures – classified for most of the pandemic as a critical organization by the Israeli government – provided direct assistance to our participants that met their pandemic-related needs. During strict lockdowns, Youth Futures succeeded in adapting its operations to remote and online operations – maintaining an optimal level for the children and their families.
During the pandemic, we conducted two extensive online surveys that assisted us in precisely identifying the critical needs of our families and enabled us to formulate operational solutions aimed at maintaining the effectiveness of Youth Futures in the following areas:
Conducting constant in-person and virtual individual and group meetings—which allowed the participants a forum to vent their emotions, share their thoughts, and maintain social interaction.
Assisting parents and children through the challenges of distance-learning—acting to reduce educational gaps, and bringing the needs of the children and families to the attention of their educational institutions. Additionally, with the support of its philanthropic partners, Youth Futures ensured that each child in the program possessed a computer or tablet that enabled them to learn remotely.
Maintaining a constant and stable relationship with families and providing varying levels and types of assistance—including grants and food packages – to families who were experiencing complex financial difficulties owing to the restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 period.
Providing babysitting services in various locations in order to enable the Mentors to maintain their availability and accessibility for Youth Futures children and families during the pandemic.
COVID-19 had a serious and destructive impact on already disadvantaged families – with a clear and significant trend of increased incidences of violence within the family and against women in particular. Youth Futures initiated a national effort to eliminate violence against women, and formulated an effective response with the close cooperation of the local municipalities – which increased accessibility within the community.
While the initiative focuses on the women in the families participating in Youth Futures, other women in the community are also reached by means of the skilled and highly experienced program staff – the majority of which are from the local community. The pilot initiative operates in eight towns across Israel and focuses on three primary channels: Providing training for Youth Futures staff in recognizing signs of and providing interventions for identified or suspected domestic abuse; educating and increasing the awareness of domestic abuse in the community, and providing actual interventions and accompanying victims in cases of identified or suspected violence.
