Warm Homes

Region: Nationwide
Fields: Children and Youth at Risk

Upgrading social and physical environment for teenage girls at risk

Upgrading the social and physical environment of teenage girls at risk

A Warm Home is a therapeutic day center for teenage girls in distress, who are referred by and are under the care of the local welfare services. The Warm Home addresses the specific problems of girls aged 13-21, with special attention to those from immigrant families or minority groups. These problems include conflict with the family and unstable social relations that lead to dropping-out from school, street-loitering, and in extreme cases, deterioration into self-damaging behavior, drug abuse and prostitution. There are around 70 such Homes around Israel, whose goal is to bring the girls back from the margins of society.

The Rashi Foundation has partnered with the Oran Foundation, the Matanel Foundation, the Glencore Foundation, the National Insurance Institute, the Ministry of Welfare, the Ministry of Absorption and JDC-Ashalim to push forward the upgrades of services and conditions of 30 Warm Homes around Israel.

These Homes, distributed for the most part in Israel’s northern and southern peripheral regions, are located at: Or-Akiva, Hadera, Haifa, Migdal Ha’emek, Ma’alot, Kiryat Ata, Um-Al-Facham, Paradis, Kfar Cana, Shachnan, Shafram and Gedida-Macar, Mitzpe Ramon, Ofakim, Dimona, Arad, Be’er Sheva (three Homes), Sderot, Neviot, Kiryat Malachi, Karmiel, Acre (two Homes), Nahariya, Al-Shagur, Afula, Kiryat Gat and Kiryat Shmona.

The Warm Homes’ upgrade program consists of these important activities and services:
• Increasing the hours of operation of the Homes to 30 hours a week (and more during the summer vacation)
• Expanding and improving the range of therapies
• Educational reinforcement and social-cultural activities
• Reinforcing the staff with a social worker and therapists
• Expanding activities that reach out to the girls’ mothers

Fully renovated and equipped
Warm Home in Ma'alot

In addition to various therapies, the girls learn new skills

Warm Homes offer opportunities for creative expression, to encourage personal growth

In addition to the upgrade of services, each Home is provided with a budget for equipment, and in some cases, for renovation, thereby increasing the Warm Homes’ overall positive impact on the teenage girls’ lives. Since October 2007, the Foundation has increased investment to also provide a hot meal for the girls, and in this way, move further towards creating the “golden model” of a Warm Home.

Quantitative Change: A comparison between the number registered today and the number registered at the start of the project (from external evaluation, July 2008)

Read more about the accomplishments of this flagship project in the executive summary of the July 2008 evaluation .