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The Therapeutic Relationship Covenant” at the International Down’s Syndrome Convention”

 The Down’s Syndrome awareness day is held all over the world on March 21. On this day, for the tenth year in a row, the International Down’s Syndrome Convention was held at the Shalva National Center in Jerusalem

 

This year, the convention dealt with the “Therapeutic Relationship Covenant”. About 400 participants from all over Israel enjoyed a variety of fascinating lectures, including: “The Envoy and the Mission” – a lecture about the staff notifying the parents that their child was born with Down’s Syndrome, presented by social worker Goldi Maranes, coordinator of the field of mother and child at the Department of Social Work, Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem. “The Integration in Shalva Kindergartens”, presented by Batya Boda, coordinator of kindergartens at Shalva, and Tehila Freundlich, pedagogical instructor. In addition, Dr. Ayelet Gur, post-doctorate student in the disability project at the Harvard Medical School, presented her lecture on: “The Family and Individual with Disabilities, Initial Findings from a Study in Israel”. The study of households with a child or adult with intellectual disabilities – head researcher: Prof. Arik Rimerman, Research Authority at the University of Haifa, partnered by the Shalem Fund and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services
 
During the convention, the participants enjoyed a performance by the group “the Pace of Peace”, which left the audience emotional and teary, and the exhibition “Glance of Love” – photographs of parents and their children with disabilities, incorporated in the stories behind the photographs. The exhibition curator is Miki Arnon, director of education and training at the Shekel Association. A family panel was held at the end of the convention hosted by Aryeh Shemesh, the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services, and Liat Rahat, director of rehabilitation therapeutic educational programs at Shalva. The parents who participated in the panel delivered the convention’s message from a personal aspect. To them, the journey as a family was intensified due to a meeting with an enabling therapeutic person, and in other words: the therapeutic relationship covenant
 

The convention contents were assembled by the staff of the scientific committee: Prof. Yoav Marik, the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services, Dr. Ariel Tenenbaum, Hadassah Medical Center, Riva Muskal, chairwoman of the Shalem Fund, Nili Ben-Dor, the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services, Sarit Rachamim, the Jerusalem municipality, and Liron Benisti, director of research and development at Shalva