Tikvah Layeled’s Neve Tzvi Center for Cerebral Palsy (CP) children in Israel is a school environment where children are brought daily to attend classes and receive intensive physical therapy and lots of love.. The staff is dedicated and professional, but, most of all, accepting and patient. The caretakers are in close contact with the children’s families. Every day, the parents receive a written report of the day’s activities and the children’s progress. Therapists provide the child with care that his or her parents cannot give or are not trained to give, thus freeing the parents to care for the rest of their family members. The CP child is given an opportunity to grow and advance at his own pace, with teachers and therapists who give him constant encouragement and who never show frustration when he seems incapable of advancement. There are twelve classes in Neve Tzvi, with a rehabilitation day-care center for babies, a kindergarten, and a full schooling program, serving children and young adults ages one through twenty-one. The classes are divided according to age and level of handicap. No class has more than eight students, and each class has two teachers and one assistant.

All are trained as paramedics and instructed in physiotherapy.

Each child is evaluated by Tikvah Layeled Neve Tzvi’s clinical staff and then given an individual regimen of therapy according to his needs. Each child is discussed at every staff meeting, which is attended by all those who care for him, and his therapy is adjusted if necessary.  One of the goals of Neve Tzvi is to mainstream CP children into regular classes as much as possible. The educational director works very hard persuading kindergartens and primary schools to accept these students, who need – more than any physical therapy or equipment – to feel accepted as human beings among peers.

A New Home for Tikvah Layeled

Neve Tzvi and its associated programs, sheltered group homes and offices are scattered among several Yerushalayim neighborhoods. Some of these facilities are small and overcrowded.

There has been an urgent and growing need for these various branches to be centrally located at one address, where there will be ample room to accommodate Tikvah Layeled’s many and varied programs. This would enable Tikvah Layeled to give all its clients the very best services in the most efficient manner.

The directors of Tikvah Layeled, together with two of its chief patrons, Mr. Albert Reichman of Toronto and Mr. Marvin Samuels of Lawrence, NY, have met with the leading figures of Yerushalayim’s municipal government, including Yoel Lutfi, deputy director of the Yerushalayim Department of Education. As a result, the city of Yerushalayim has granted Tikvah Layeled a large plot of land in the Har Nof neighborhood to build a large campus to serve the city and surrounding communities in caring for infants, children and adolescents who suffer from cerebral palsy and other neurological disorders

This will enable Tikvah Layeled to bring together its full staff of special-ed teachers and trained therapists to help these children overcome their physical challenges in the area of motor skills.

The Tikvah Layeled campus will include large, airy classrooms alongside state-of-the-art shops for fashioning custommade rehabilitative equipment for various handicaps. It will have available a vast array of equipment, including games and exercise equipment made for the development of growing muscles. It will include workshops for older children, a shul, and a swimming pool for therapeutic purposes and for the general enjoyment of Tikvah Layeled’s children.