Personal Social Services – 1998-99

These services serve the most vulnerable groups in Israeli society, such as children at risk, disabled or needy elderly, teenagers in distress, battered women, families in crisis, the disabled, the retarded, recent immigrants with adjustment difficulties, ex-convicts, and drug addicts.

Various service organizations are active in the arena of personal social services and are in charge of providing these groups with assistance, which includes advice, treatment, provision of information, mediation, instruction at the individual, family, and group levels, and material aid. These organizations also engage in developing, funding, and operating various community and institutional services: institutions, clubs, and day centers for the elderly, hostels and community housing for the retarded and the disabled, shelters for girls in distress and for battered women, clubs and afternoon centers for children, rehabilitation centers for the disabled, family counseling centers, and detoxification centers for alcoholics and drug addicts.

This paper appears as a chapter in the Center’s annual publication, Israel’s Social Services 1998-99, Yaakov Kop (editor).