Mental Health For The Mentally Ill

ezer · Star Poster Joined: Dec 11, 2007 Posts: 14

Social Club Opens for Mentally Ill Women (07/0 Cool

A new initiative of Ezer Mizion’s Mental Health Department is its Social Club for young women undergoing mental health rehabilitation. The club operates at Ezer Mizion’s national headquarters Jacob Fried Building.
Shortly after the Mental Health Department opened its doors, it became clear that a pressing need existed for its activities, and for good reason. For these women, the only alternative to the Center is sitting alone, day after day, staring at the four walls…
Initiated by a group of social workers as a "Masters' Project" for their academic degree, the Mental Health Department began operating its social club offering social interaction and constructive occupation which served to build up the women's self-esteem and confidence. The activities met with such resounding success that Ezer Mizion decided to carry the project forward at full force, expanding its activities from once to three times a week.
Among the greatest problems facing the mentally ill in the community are loneliness and a crippling feeling of inability. While most of the women work in sheltered work environments in the morning, the afternoon and evening hours sprawl before them, utterly empty and desolate. In most cases, the mentally ill are cut off from normal social life, divested of the responsibilities and privileges of healthy people.
The Social Club offers a solution in these very crucial areas. The goals of the project are to develop each woman's personal potential, encourage interactive communication, and improve goal-setting and organizational abilities, enabling the participants to become functioning, positive individuals within a nurturing social environment.
The program at the Center is very structured. The three hours of activity are divided into three segments:
• Independent activity – During this segment, each women takes a turn at presenting to her friends a "lesson" in an area where she excels – i.e., delivering an insight on the Parsha, a musical performance, or craft demonstration.
• Directed activity – At this time, the Center offers high level, enriching lessons in music, cooking, swimming, exercise, as well as arts and crafts, taught by Moriah Goren, a professional art therapist.
• Group activity – During the group time, a skilled professional guides the women through diverse activities that develop each one's self-awareness, group communication skills and such, enabling them to overcome limitations and improve their social adjustment.
The value of each of these activities is immeasurable: The independent presentations foster creativity and personal initiative and serve as a tremendously empowering factor for the women.
The structured lessons give the women a surge of confidence in their own abilities, as they experience intense pleasure both in the process and in the final achievement. The constant refrain that the Center attempts to implant in the women's consciousness is: "I can do it! I can contribute of my own abilities to those around me!"
The group activities afford the women an opportunity to formulate the social ties that are so lacking to them, and invest them with a growing sense of personal value. On one occasion, each woman wore a paper taped to her back, and each of the others wrote on that paper a positive aspect of the woman wearing it. Such activities develop the women's verbal communication and emotional expression, as well as giving each one a more positive self-image.
In the future, the Center hopes to expand its activities to include parties, trips and lectures. Many of the women are already gainfully employed in Ezer Mizion’s kitchen, each in her sphere of capability, both in preparing meals for accompanying family members in the hospitals, and in Ezer Mizion's high quality subsidized catering service.
For many of these women, if it were not for the sheltered job, social club, and the interaction with a warm, accepting, normative environment they would have no reason to get out of bed in the morning.
The Center gives them more than occupation; it elevates their self-esteem, empowers them and offers them a social safety net. Above all, it gives them the drive to hope and dream. As one woman wrote when asked how she sees herself and what she wishes for her future: "I'm happy, I'm healthy, but I'm not like everyone. But some day, I'll get married and have a life of my own."