This work was supported by a grant from Shalem Fund
The present study examines differences in Muslim social workers and Imams’ recommendations regarding marriage/divorce and child custody Issues of persons with intellectual disabilities and mental illness. The population studied consisted of the majority of the Muslim social workers (138), working in 11 social service departments in the Northern Triangle municipalities and most of the imams (48) employed by the Interior Ministry in the same region. The research questionnaire included the following questionnaires background questionnaire; Social Worker Religiousness Questionnaire (DUREL; Koenig & Büssing, 2010), and a questionnaire that included 25 vignettes constructed by the researcher based on the Sharia Court rulings, adapted to the study. The model has been tested by CHAID Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detector algorithm using SPSS
When explicitly stated that the family was religious or observant, it received special attention by Muslim social workers and imams

In general Muslim social workers inclined to make a religious recommendation when the family of a person with intellectual disability or mental illness was explicitly described as religious. The same result was obtained in the general analysis of the imams. On the other hand, in analyzing Muslim social worker recommendations related to vignettes of intellectual disability, it was found that the type of issue (marriage, divorce and child custody) was relevant to the recommendations and not necessarily the family’s religiousness

For the Full text in Hebrew press here
For the English Abstract press here

Key words
People with intellectual developmental disabilities
Mental Illness
Secularization
Religion
Social Workers
Child Custody, Marriage, Divorce
Shale Fund study