Ta'am Hachaym  Project

In Israel,  chronic patients' family members, are not allocated or served by the community welfare advocates,
           although they are integral part of society, capable to contribute to the community and in a need of its support.
Patient's organizations rarely collaborate between themselves,
rarely activate support programs that involve the families and hardly ever run their activities
in the peripheral regions of Israel

 In The Ta'am Hachaym project, Katef Chama  generates Support centers
for chronic patients' family members.
These centers offer programs held in accessible nature,create social support,
establishes self Help, promotes economic empowerment and community leadership.

 According to finding from a pilot project, resiliency building with nature therapy methods
can make the difference for the families and the communities- and lead to better communication skills, better family and social support and better efficiency in copping with chronic stress.
read some beutifull stories of success

In Israel, chronic patients' family members "fall between two chairs":
on one hand  they are not being served by the welfare offices -and on the other hand,
the public Health service fails to assist them with community support
  and do not offer tools of copping with everyday social and emotional issues.
Once a patient and his/her family are out of the clinic, they are on their own.
The few patients' organizations that do offer or provide support services for family members,
operates programs that are located in the center of Israel.
Furthermore, most of the programs available are Psycho-educational and cognitive oriented,
leaving only a limited room for joint positive experience and for non- verbal expression-
so necessary for a complete copping with change and crisis due to chronic illness.

Recruiting participants  who are family members of only one kind of illness,
as the common denominator is difficult at the peripheral regions
Such division leads to discrimination of the peripheral regions' residents.
We believe, that groups division by the illness definition, only weakens the families
and  prevents crossed –experience dialog amongst the community.
A "mixed group" is more likely to induce a reciprocal influence with in the community
and more efficiently promote better solutions to their needs.

The Ta'am Hachaym program deals with the quality of relationship and support with in the families,
which are affected by the everyday reliance and the disrupted normative distribution of family roles.
The program encourages competing with social and vocational barriers, attitudes, and accessibility issues.

The Target populations are parents, partners, children's or siblings of chronic patients, 
who reside in peripheral and rural regions of Israel. 
40% of participants are families whose income is lower than the median income at the community. 

Program Delivery:
The Ta'am Hachaym programs combines challenge, Art, movement, drama and varied nature activities,
with a narrative approach, self help skills, nature protection and reservation.
The Ta'am Hachaym programs  offer ways to cope with crisis, change and chronic stress,
they build resiliency,personal and community Leadership.  

How Resiliency building & NatureTherapy works:    

Resiliency building at Katef Chama programs is based upon the BasicPh model created by Prof. Muli Lahad:
the model claims that in order to cope with crisis and change, a person is using 7 routes of communication with the surrounding: Belief, Affections, Social, Imagination, Cognition, and Physiology. People who do not use all those routes well, develop a reversible disability to cope with stress. www.icspc.org  

The Ta'am Hachaym* Social Support and Leadership programs,Which were developed by Katef Chama for chronic patients' family members, are building resiliency by a sequence of activities operating each of the above routes, and function as copping with change and stress practice.  

(*Meaning Essence of Life in Hebrew)   

 NatureTherapy ™ is an innovative therapeutic framework,
that takes place through the direct and creative dialogue humans have with nature.
It expands the classical concept of ‘setting' while developing concepts and methods, that place nature as a partner in the therapeutic process.  
It connects people with their strength, supports change and healing, while expanding the therapeutic process
and actively engaging humans with nature.
Nature Therapy is a post-modern approach integrating elements from different kinds of therapies,
Shamanism, Ecopsychology and Body-Mind-Spirit practices, Developed by Dr. Ronen Berger, 
Nature Therapy is put into practice with individuals, groups and families and receives a growing recognition
by the health, educational and welfare ministries in Israel and abroad. www.naturetherapy.org 

The Social support program: based on a fantastic frame- story, which is connected to the local view,
and serves as a metaphor of copping with crisis,it  leads to issues that the participants ,
as chronic patients' family members, deal with in their every day lives.
The group process enables the participants a space for self expression that rarely takes part at home. 
Setting:  8 X 3 hours sessions guided by Art Therapists and nature group counselors
The Social support program takes place in accesable nature, allowing the participants the opportunity to first experience in- nature group work, to obtain a sense of self efficacy and unique identity with regard to themselves,  the group, organization and community.
Based on this experience, the participants can assure their ability to obligate for a long term group process. 

The Leadership program, designed as a 24 hours intensive session,or as a 4x6 hours sessions,  
Focuses on personal and community Leadership with intermediate communication training. 
The Leadership program allows the participants to exercise and improve Strategic development and planning ahead skills, Decision making, group work and emergency events management.
The Leadership program is "wrapped" in challenging nature rehabilitation and reservation activity

 The Self Help program: 3 sessions guided by Social advocates who are  community rehabilitation experts
  aiming to acquire knowledge about rights and tools for efficient and orgenized community.

 
The establishment of the support centers and the activation of the programs
 depends on contributions from the community, the government ,local authorities and  donors
you can .donate and support  and Join our groups 

 

Kesher Cham project
The Kesher Cham is a knowledge transformation project
Its goals are to enhance awareness by web site and lectures,
Generation of occupation solutions and connect with the community
 In order to achieve co -operation from medical staff and social workers  and for the benefit of the family members, kesher Cham project's secondary goal is to empower professional teams through educational workshops and
confrences.

 

 

 

 

 

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