Sulam was honored last week to host Michal Herzog, a representative from the Maurice and Vivienne Wohl Philanthropic Foundation, who toured Sulam’s facility, witnessing the amazing work with at-risk young ladies who receive professional training and support volunteering in our early childhood programs.

Featured story on Arutz 7, Gila Gamliel, MK for Social Equality, came to visit Sulam’s main headquarters, to see the professional opportunities provided to the ultra-Orthodox women who are employed in Sulam’s therapeutic daycare. With hundreds of women employed by Sulam, both on the administrative and non-administrative level, Sulam is a trailblazer in the ultra-Orthodox world, providing both training and practical opportunities for women to give  children with special needs the unique intervention that they deserve. Gamliel was given a VIP tour of the facilities, including the hydrotherapy pool and the media room, where children with autism use iPads to improve language and communication skills.  Gamliel was told of the new and incredible initiative at Sulam, a support group for mothers of children with special needs, a group consisting of women from the entire spectrum of religious practice. This unique group retains its participants at a rate of 100%, providing endless emotional support for mothers who are faced with challenges, which can be incredibly lonely and painful. Sulam’s support group provides these women with a safe space, a place for sharing, venting, and providing mutual support and resources. Gamliel stated, “The fact that a small group of ultra-Orthodox women alone manage an organization that employs hundreds of workers and provides therapeutic services to hundreds of children, is a striking testament to the social changes in the ultra-Orthodox sector.” She also expressed her commitment to continual work together to facilitate funding and support for Sulam’s growth. Sulam currently has 587 infants and toddlers in 71 classrooms in 12 different therapeutic daycares throughout the country. 624 women work tirelessly to ensure that the services that Sulam provides are professional and top-quality.

I asked her name when she walked into the classroom. She was too shy to respond, so Aviya responded for her. “Her name is Yael.”

Yael, a sad and confused young girl, was only 4 years old. She was accompanied by her sister Aviya, a graduate of Sulam’s special education classes. Yael suffered from anxiety and panic attacks and responded hysterically with any interaction. The nursery psychologist supervised the staff, providing techniques and tips for working with Yael and building trust and educational goals. After a month of work, Yael began to feel more comfortable and with much needed support, she agreed to take off her jacket and backpack. From then on, slowly, Yael began to show steps of improvement. While she still could not communicate verbally in anyway, she began to show interest in what was going on academically, as well as socially. Yael began therapy sessions, as every child in a Sulam preschool is entitled to. At first, it did not seem like there was much change, but then came the breakthrough.

Yael was chosen to take part in Sulam’s horticultural therapy, commonly known as gardening, to achieve therapeutic goals. After her first session gardening, Yael ran into the classroom, with energy never seen before, hugged the teacher and promptly exclaimed “My name is Yael!” The teacher, filled with tears and hugs, could not believe what had happened. Three months it took Yael to utter her first words. That experience caused an amazing change in Yael and while her plants began to take sprout, she too started to make incredible strides. And most importantly, Yael realized that her name was her identity, an identity that with patience and cultivating could continually grow and develop.

What is gardening therapy? Gardening, is a medium used in therapy to help children with wide ranges of special needs to understand the concepts of growth and change, both within themselves and within their social context. When meeting with nature, touching the ground, the different senses are activated and allow for them to process new experiences, ideas, and skills. This learning process, preparation, patience, and anticipating consequences, allows for the child to build him or herself in ways that verbal therapy could never accomplish. Sulam’s trained therapeutic staff and dedicated, professional educational staff, make these opportunities possible for children like Yael. Another Sulam win! Like what you hear? Help us make this possible for other amazing children like Yael.

At your birthday celebration, your desk at work, driving in your car, or cooking in your kitchen, music, is a consistent friend, accompanying you as a distraction, a form of leisure, or a cathartic experience. Music is paired colloquially with the term soul, as it is a powerful form of emotional expression. As Hans Christian Anderson, the beloved fairy tale author said, “where words fail, music speaks.”

Music is an artform popular throughout the course of history. From King David to Beethoven, music has played an integral part in cultural, religious, and social rites, activities, and ceremonies. The world of music, so broad in its variety, has led to schools of thought on theory; analyzing rhythm, harmony, form, melody, and structure.

It is no wonder that music has become a popular medium of therapeutic intervention. In fact, it is known that many brilliant minds have used music to promote sharper thought processes, concentration, and calm. Albert Einstein, famously, was known to take refuge in music, stating that music is what guides his intellectual and creative innovations.

With the advance of psychological therapies, expression through music to explore responses, reactions, and insights, has become a common modality. After assessment of client’s needs, the therapist can use music to help a client express that which can’t be communicated verbally. In addition to increasing communication abilities, music therapy can serve as a motivating factor in therapy involvement, as the diversity of music can speak to many different types of people and needs and subsequently help with a wide array of problems, from physical to emotional. Since music works on regions of the brain that stimulate emotion, sensation, and cognition, music often evokes positive symptoms among people with physical ailments or those who need to reduce stress levels, amongst other things.

For children with autism, music is a particularly effective form of therapy. Characterized by deficits in social communication and restrictive and often repetitive behaviors, children with ASD benefit tremendously from music therapy. According to Heaton (2005), research shows that children with autism have a heightened aptitude and sensitivity towards music and musical skill, compared to peers. Music therapy includes a variety of techniques including, vocalization (singing), composition (songwriting), listening, movement (listening), and instrument play. Over the course of multiple sessions, clients are provided with familiarity, structure, and predictability, all crucial elements of the learning process for a child with autism.

At Sulam, our music  room is one of our favorite therapy rooms. Here, the children find a means for self-expression. Equipped with microphones, instruments, playback machines and a variety of tools to increase cognitive skills, motoric function, and social skills, our music therapy room provides an advantage to our children who so often otherwise would have to wait months to receive similar therapies through the healthcare funds. Most importantly though, the music therapy program at Sulam is a place where children develop a warm, beneficial therapeutic relationship, in which the therapist consistently is setting and reaching to achieve new goals. When combined with the myriad of other services that Sulam provides for children with disabilities, music therapy brings children one step closer to reaching their potential!