by Pamela Deutsch

Talia was born in Switzerland and made aliyah with her family at the age of five.  At the age of seven, the family moved to Nigeria, where her father worked for the Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva.  At the time, there were quite a few Israeli families living in the area, and there was even an Israeli school with two grades per class.  Later Talia attended a boarding school in Nigeria; however when the Nigera-Biafra war broke out, in 1967, Talia and her family realized that she would not be able to go back to school in Nigeria and so she attended the Kfar Yarok boarding school in Israel.  When her parents moved back to Israel, Talia still had two more years of school and she then finished her high school education in Ramat Gan, graduating from Ohel Shem.

As an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, Talia served in the Intelligence Corp, and during the 1973 war as a casualty officer in her unit.  Upon finishing her service, she began to study English and French at Hebrew University, but her studies were interrupted by the needs of her growing family.

While raising her family, Talia held a wide variety of positions including serving as an officer in the Israeli Police Force, a teacher for natural childbirth and breast feeding counselor, directing the track for front desk personnel at a hotel school, and working as a tour guide at Hadassah Hospital.   When Talia was pregnant with her third child, she began studying social work at Hebrew University.

Having completed her BSW Talia began working at the National Insurance Institute with widows, widowers and terror victims. Over the next few years, Talia attained a MSW from Bar Ilan University in clinical social work, studied psychotherapy and bibliotherapy, and attained the credentials necessary to become a qualified social work supervisor.

In 1994, she left NII and opened her own private practice specializing in bereavement and family counseling.  During those years, she volunteered as an ambulance driver. In 2001 in response to the Versaille disaster, when an events hall collapsed during a wedding, Talia voluntarily created a support group for the bereaved families under the umbrella of the Jerusalem municipality.  Other professionals in the field recognized the work Talia did, and she was invited to join a new initiative – the Israel Trauma Coalition.

Initiated at the height of the second  intifada, the Israel Trauma Coalition (ITC), started with the support and through the auspices of the UJA Federation of New York, in partnership Dr, Danny Brom from the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psycho Trauma,  had the express goal of bringing together service providers in order to improve services for terror victims.

What began as a small initiative of seven organizations and two projects has turned into a partnership between 40 organizations that together aim to create a continuum of care for victims of trauma and their families.  The Coalition concentrates it efforts in three areas – direct care, team training and support, and emergency preparedness for local councils and teams.

To mention just a few important milestones for the ITC – commitment to those living in the Gaza region including the development and implementation of 5 resilience centers;  involvement before, during, and after the Gush Katif evacuation; creation in the last two years of regional training centers in order to provide more effective training and services to local councils, as well as the establishment of a regional network of care givers.  Overseas, the ITC has been involved in providing solutions, for example, after 9/11 involvement in the bi – national project on early childhood, provision of training for local trainers in Sri Lanka, Beslan and Checnia at the request of UNICEF, post Katrina in Louisiana, and partnering with the JDC in Haiti, Mumbai and Japan.

Talia was invited to the UN to participate in a small group of professionals who are experts in treating victims of terror.   The professionals focused on the need to acknowledge the experience of those exposed and the need for long-term treatment.

Today the ITC works with 12 government ministries in Israel and the Home Front Command.

Talia has served as Director of the Israel Trauma Coalition since 2006. “Given the Israeli reality, creating and maintaining such a partnership should not be taken for granted, it is very unique but the results are worth it!” says Talia.

The ITC supports itself through providing services to the government and from donations mainly from federations.

Talia lives with her husband in Jerusalem and is the proud parent of four daughters and the grandparent of two.

The intensity of equatorial midsummer heat that accompanied me into the hanger-turned-arrival terminal abated only when I again landed in Santo Domingo airport two weeks later. The lack of luggage trolleys is perfectly consistent with the lack of a pavement outside the terminal.  I momentarily feared that the sea of greeters, drivers and would-be day workers would forever obscure me from my waiting compatriots but the connection was made and we drove off towards town.

The perception of destruction I experienced in those first minutes was numbing. Later, I saw much beauty in many shades of color, hope, resilience, pride and self- efficacy, but along those first kilometers it was all rubble. Rubble not confined to the destroyed buildings on the sides of the “roads,” but the roads themselves and most things on it: the rows of huts and tents lined up as dwellings on the road divider; the throngs hanging in and off the sides of the pickup trucks-turned human-transporters and the tent cities themselves. There was one remaining green area in Port au Prince: that behind the fence surrounding the collapsed Presidential Palace. But every other patch of open space, the green that breathes life into London, New York and Jerusalem, is now a ground cloth to tarp-touching-tarp tent cities.

But soon I began to feel the life and the energies which characterize Haitians. Not only do people emerge from those tents every morning, cross the rubble and set off in a direction, they do so with an indescribable air of purpose, resolve and pride. The children are immaculately dressed in their school uniforms, the adults in clothing pristine as in Milan.

This is the spirit to which volunteer organizations must connect in order to contribute anything of value to Haitian recovery. Of the some 6000 not-for profits operating in Haiti today I fear too many come with their own agendas and their own perceptions of what Haiti needs.

I was sent as part of a Trauma Response and Community Development training team by The Israel Trauma Coalition and Natan: The Israeli Emergency Response Coalition. It was done with the backing of the AJJDC International Development Programs – the division of “the Joint” that supports non-sectarian disaster relief. The strength of the program lay in the fact that the organizers did not send us there with clear instructions on what to teach or even with whom to work. This emerged from the needs we heard from the students and professional we eventually worked with.  I believe that because of this approach we received the following kinds of feedback:

Now we know how to help ourselves, and after that how to help others.

I like the way the trainers encouraged us to participate at the seminar.  It was mostly dialog between us.

I know now when someone is traumatized, because someone can be traumatize and not even be aware of it.

We should have got this formation earlier, if we had it, we would had perceived the earthquake differently.

Our lives have entirely changed. Our relationships with others, the way we understand ourselves, we have become more self-confident.

Tikum Olam is the Jewish value that most inspires my life: professional and personal.  My experience in Haiti reminds me that meeting another with compassion and sincerity leaves both enriched.

The program includes four outings – one during each season of the year. Through hikes and workshops, participants are exposed to the wondrous changes that occur in nature – the shedding of leaves in the autumn, the gushing waters of winter, the blossoming of flowers and plants every spring, and the nature that flourishes even in the heat of summer. Depending on the season of the year, participants have the opportunity to produce olive oil in LOTEM’s olive press, bake their own bread over an open fire, or make wine by treading on grapes in LOTEM’s accessible wine-press. Through active participation in both hikes and workshops, women and children are offered the opportunity to experience nature, while healing both their bodies and their souls.

Rachel Ziv, director of the Women’s Crisis Shelter in Haifa, wrote after the November outing, “I have no doubt that the women and children of our shelter gained much from their excursions with LOTEM, above and beyond what we originally thought they would gain. They gained mother-child quality time, familiarity and contact with nature – animal vegetable and mineral – the understanding that one may enjoy the world around them – trees, earth, water, air – which are free to all of us and that children love so much, and many positive experiences to refill their and their children’s drained batteries.”

On that last hike, one of the women closed her eyes, let the wind and the sun caress her face and said: “This is so good.” She kept that smile on her face the whole day, and took pictures of her children in every natural nook and cranny she could find, to save these moments of happiness for the rest of their lives.

An 11-year-old boy told me, every few minutes, “We should do this kind of stuff all the time!”, saying it from the bottom of his heart.

It is our belief that Mother Nature increases the quality of participants’ lives, providing mothers and children with the opportunity to enjoy each other’s company in the shelter that only nature can provide. Most of all, it helps mothers and children realize that the world around them, the source of fear and cynicism, can be a place of renewal, sustenance and trust.

How does one deal with experiences like this? While hearing people have access to more sources of information, the deaf person quoted above is relatively isolated. The more than 10,000 deaf and hard-of-hearing people in Israel suffer daily, not from terrorist attacks, but from “crisis” situations of more mundane types – but nearly equal emotional impact. Unfortunately, their unique needs are rarely considered during times of crisis, emergencies, or terrorist attacks. They do not receive services equal to those received by the hearing population, and programs geared towards crisis intervention and trauma have not been accessible to them or created with them in mind.

Through use of trained deaf mentors fears that are unique to deaf people in crisis situations are uncovered. One benefit of this approach is the power of peer support when learning to cope with crisis situations. Identifying with others who have the same disability is a way to uncover other unique aspects of fear and trauma, aspects that are then incorporated into the program’s curriculum. This identification with others and understanding often leads to a feeling of relief and confidence in coping with these stressful situations.

Over 300 people a year, many of whom are new immigrants, take part in this program. Although the participants vary widely in their experiences and lives, they have a common denominator: their inability to hear and a desire to learn to cope with the realities of life in Israel. The workshops are devoted to teaching skills relevant to emergency situations such as war and terror attacks. Participants are guided through the process of dealing with fear, loss and anxiety during these difficult times.

Participants benefit from receiving practical solutions and courses of action for functioning during times of emergency, danger or fear. They feel more self-assured and less fearful, which improves their emotional state and overall well-being. They have an increased level of self-assurance and self-confidence in themselves as well and in their newfound ability to effectively and calmly handle emergency situations of all types, particularly coping with terror attacks as deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, and their aftermath.

This program, along with many others at the Institute, helps deaf people to navigate the complexities of life as a deaf or hard of hearing person in Israel.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Sderot’s Resilience Center made a major and significant contribution to the mental health of our city’s residents during Operation Cast Lead,” says Nitai Shreiber, Director of Gvanim Association in Sderot, Israel.

During the most recent of Israel’s military operations, Sderot’s residents were caught between the Hamas militants of the Gaza Strip and Israel’s response to many years of unprovoked missile attacks on Israel’s civilians. According to Dalia Yosef, Director of Sderot’s Resilience Center, Operation Cast Lead brought with it a horrific intensification of both rocket fire and uncontrolled trauma. The Resilience Center proved to be one of the strongest and most important services available to Sderot’s communities during the war; in less than three weeks, the Center’s Emergency Room treated about 300 emotionally injured residents who needed extreme, immediate help. Hundreds more signed up for ongoing individual or group therapy.

Trauma and anxiety are not new to Sderot. This city, and the communities near it, are located only a mile or less from the Gaza Strip and have been victims of unpredictable but continuous missile and mortar shell attacks for more than eight years. The region’s youngest children have known nothing but a life with daily missile attacks. During periods of intensification, schools are shut, businesses fail and even public gatherings are forbidden.

The Resilience Center was established in late 2007 as a tool to provide professional support, treatment for those in trauma (according to some studies, that includes 90% of Sderot’s population) and training for the professionals who support the region’s residents. “We include elements in all our programs to help residents cope with trauma and challenges,” notes Chen Abrahams, from Gvanim’s directorship, who lives in nearby Kfar Aza. “We also focus on building community resilience. These are such clear, ongoing needs.” Symptoms of trauma can range from insomnia and inability to concentrate, apathy and depression, violent outbursts, physical illness, bedwetting (at every age) and hair loss to the inability to plan for the future or function on a daily basis. The Resilience Center welcomes all and provides treatment without stigma.

In the first three months of 2009, almost 1,000 adults, youths and children received help in the form of individual or group therapy. People reach the Center by directly contacting it or by receiving a referral from social, educational or medical service providers. The number of those in need are likely to grow, Ms. Yosef explained, because many of Sderot’s families are afflicted with intense and deep-set anxieties and traumas as a result of the ongoing nature of the security crisis. Entire communities in Sderot have been swept up into feelings of hopelessness, infecting even the most resilient members of their community. The Resilience Center stands as a beacon of hope for community, family and individual rehabilitation.

The Center’s work is far from done, but it has clearly become a leader in providing mental health services for the emotionally injured.