For thirty years, Yachad has been advocating for the inclusion of those with disabilities within the Jewish community. In recent years, however, the organization has been able to reach beyond our immediate Jewish circles, sharing the experience and expertise of its professional staff with the general community.
“As part of the wider disabilities professionals’ community we are responsible for educating our colleagues, and in turn being educated by our colleagues,” states Dr. Jeffrey Lichtman, international director of Yachad. “Yachad is great at providing its services to our members and their families, but we realize that while we may have many pieces of the puzzle, we don’t have all of the pieces. The more individuals and agencies interact and share information, the better it will be for the people we serve.”
“Yachad provides these services and works with other agencies, schools and organizations to make sure they are on the cutting edge of special needs education, technology and resources. It’s our responsibility to ensure that every agency servicing the special needs community is well equipped with knowledge and know-how,” adds Eli Hagler, associate director of Yachad.
To fulfill that mission, Yachad director of Social Work Deborah Berman, LCSW, developed a Continuing Education Conference for disability services professionals. Its goal is to further develop their professional skills as well as enable them to network with agencies across the spectrum of services.
“It’s no longer realistic for a practitioner to utilize a one-size-fits-all approach to client matters,” Deborah explains. “Working with individuals with special needs requires a practitioner to be a sociologist, an historian, a detective, and a counselor. They must understand how an individual’s culture or community responds and reacts to individuals with disabilities, both on the attitudinal level and the social service level.”
The first conference was so successful that Yachad opted to host two such conferences during this school year, in December and in April. The conferences respond to the needs of disabilities workers in many different professional areas. For example, many of those in attendance were key gatekeepers in different agencies working with staff and families. Within Deborah’s workshop on “Direct Care Worker Support and Self Care,” conversation among the group shifted to the struggles of motivational management by supervisors and senior staff. “All managers constantly deal with preventing staff burnout,” Deborah assured the group. “Trying to help your clients deal with difficult situations can make your staff feel unqualified and ineffective. Let’s discuss how a good manager can combat that feeling…” 
Another area explored at the conference was how individuals with disabilities can be enabled to find their place in the workforce. The Jewish Union Foundation (JUF) partners with Yachad in providing comprehensive vocational services to the disability community; Jack Gourdji, JUF executive director, and Michael Appelbaum, JUF program director, led an enlightening session on “Vocational Options for Persons with Disabilities.”
Discussing vocational development with the group, Natalie Marc of VISIONS Center on Blindness said, “For the most part, people with disabilities are very hard working and that supports a high retention rate. Our clients are grateful to be employed and really want to prove that they are capable. Once they have the opportunity to show themselves, they will give it their all. Employers love that. They want to hire someone they know can contribute a lot to the company.”
The high level of expertise demonstrated by the Yachad presenters and those from other agencies whom Yachad enlisted to address the conferences assured a positive, productive outcome. Luigi Clemente, a first-year student in Hunter College’s Master’s program for Rehabilitation Counseling, made it a point to participate. “A large part of working with rehab counseling entails vocational development for people with disabilities, so when my department chair forwarded us an email about the conference, I decided to attend to broaden my horizons and network,” Clemente says. “I’m so glad I came.”
Conferences for Educators
In addition to Continuing Education Conferences for professionals in the disability field, Yachad organizes two major conferences every year for educators in the Greater New York/New Jersey area (and also provides monthly webinars for educators). To better accommodate school budgets and encourage wider participation, conferences for educators in different regions of North America are planned.
“Every child learns differently – every child has strengths, every child has weaknesses –and therefore we need to look at each child as a diverse learner in order to teach them better,” says Batya Jacob, director of Yachad Educational Support Services who coordinates the conferences.
With more than 800 participants, Yachad’s Election Day Educators’ Conference has become a distinguished professional advancement opportunity for New Jersey special education professionals and their colleagues from around the country. This year’s two-day conference, “Creating a Positive School Environment for Diverse Learners,” was attended by representatives of eighty-plus schools from around the country.
“These conferences reach a range of teachers from those who hold degrees in Special Education to those who are trained as typical secular and Jewish teachers and do not have that background,” says Batya. “Today, every classroom has all types of different learners; teachers need to know how to reach each child and how to juggle a class with so many different types of learners.”
One of the topics addressed by the Election Day Conference was “blended learning,” a combination of direct teacher instruction combined with learning by computer. “Technology has infused virtually every aspect of our lives,” Dr. Lichtman emphasized to the assembled group. “Clearly it is where our students ‘live,’ and has the potential to offer much. But it can never replace the human dynamic, especially in education. And so it is vitally important that we look at how best to utilize technology and blended learning from many vantage points.”
“The hallmark of Yachad is that we can reach a broad gamut of Jewish life,” shares Batya. “It’s not just the Modern Orthodox, not just Charedi (Ultra Orthodox) – it’s really our ability to put 200 people from all parts of Jewish life together to learn from each other, people who all have the same goal of teaching Jewish children, of growing Jewish neshamot (souls). To me, that’s success.”
Of course, the success of all Yachad conferences is determined by how many of the practices shared – whether in the classroom or within an agency – are implemented to any degree. “Remember that you are not doing this for a rush of gratification,” Deborah Berman stressed to a room full of case workers, “we do this because we strive to help others; we are doing God’s work.”
For information on Continuing Education Conferences for disability services professionals contact Deborah Berman at BermanD@ou.org.
For information on Educators’ Conferences contact Batya Jacob at BatyaJ@ou.org.
Batya Rosner is a staff writer at the Orthodox Union.
This is an article from Belong Magazine 2014. For more information, or to receive your own copy contact belong@ou.org