 Major sponsors for Ableton on Air include Green Mountain Support Services, empowering people with disabilities to live home in the community, Washington County Mental Health, where hope and support come together. Media sponsors for Ableton on Air include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, WWW, this is the Bronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, New York Power Online Newspaper, U.S. Press Corps Domestic and International, Anchor FM and Spotify. Partners for Ableton on Air include the HOD of New York and New England, where everyone belongs, the Orthodox Union, the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired of Vermont, the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Center Vermont Habitat for Humanity, and Montpelier Sustainable Coalition, Montefiore Medical Center of the Bronx, Roosevelt Kennedy Center of Bronx, New York, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of the Bronx. Ableton on Air has been seen in the following publications, Park Chester Times, WWW, this is the Bronx.com, New York Power Online Newspaper, Muslim Community Report, www.h.com, and the Montpelier Bridge. Ableton on Air is part of the following organizations, the National Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences, Boston, New England Chapter, and the Society of Professional Journalists. Hello and welcome to this edition of Ableton on Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the different label. I've always been your host, Lauren Seiler. Our meeting is not here today, but on this edition we will focus on social work, and social work in Israel, and many other things around social work. But before we do that, we would like to thank our sponsors, Washington County Mental Health, Green Mountain Support Services, and many others, including the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and many other sponsors and partners. We would like to welcome our guest, David Wecker, social worker from Israel. Welcome back to Ableton on Air, because you were on before. Thanks for having me. Okay. For those that don't know, since you are a social worker in Israel, what is the difference between, in your opinion, or there are differences, obviously, what's the difference of being a social worker in Israel and the United States? Are there any differences within practicum, you know, helping people, being a social worker? Yeah. I didn't know so much about the system here in the United States, but what I can say about Israel, and where I see the difference, is like in Israel, it's a welfare society, like they're taking care of all the citizens from when they start, they have a free health insurance to all the citizens, and then you grow up in a welfare society. Of course, the education is free. Well, what is meant by a welfare society, in this case? You have a lot of rights from the time that you, your birth, at the end of your life, when you became old and you need some help, the state they care on, all the things that you need, most of the things, let's say. There is still a free market there too, but, you know, it's a little bit different. Right? Then from my perspective, the most different is there, you know, because a social worker in Israel, a lot of time, their work is focused on how people can get their benefits, how to help them to get the right treatment, how they can get better, how to help kids that in risk to live in the school, or in risk because of their families, we try to help them in all those fields. Do you teach people, well, okay, you're in foster care as a social worker. Can you explain about that and how that's different in Israel? Go ahead. Yeah, sure. Then, I think that the foster care system in Israel is really wide. Like, they just pass a law that say that even, most of the kids that come into foster care facilities and families, they come from, they come to relatives and the government and the country decide that you want to support that. She help them with money, with treatment, every kid that... Oh, so they give you a, they give a kid, they give the parent a voucher to help? Yeah, they give them direct deposit of money every month and they get, they are guided by a social worker, you know, because a lot of time, the parents, from my perspective and what I see in the field, a lot of the time, parents didn't understand the need of the kid to get treatment, like, you know, a physical... like a therapy from a psychologist or sometimes medicines, you know, because what they pass through, you know, post trauma, you know, all that kind of things, anxiety, depression, then we help the parents to, to get the kids to the right place, to the place that they can grow, that they can become better and this is what we do and I think the most different here from what I read about the foster care system in the United States is like, in the United States, it's less wide and it's more hard to walk because there is facilities that you don't have here. For example? Like in Israel, let's say, for example, if you want to put the kid on a... on another... we have like a wide, wide, wide option of that you can choose which health insurance you want. Then we can, like when we want to move someone, some kid to another, if the family, the foster family want the kid to move to another facility, we can just... we can just call, we call it the national insurance and to tell them, move that kid, we don't need anybody's permission for that and it's make their work a lot more easier for us or even if we want to work with the school system or to get a lot of stuff, it's more easier. Walk me through a typical day or week, let's start with a day. What is the typical day like for you working in the system you work in? Yeah, then the COVID change a lot in our field because they start to understand that you don't have to work from offices, especially in our work because we don't, like most of the time, we are case managing and we try to get the kid the right treatment, the right family, the right direction and because of that we work mostly at home. We start, we work, we write documents, we write reports and we try to, we talking with a social worker that take care of the family, on the biologic family and we try to convince them to, you know, we try to make everything to work for everybody that everybody will know what's going on and that we can decide together what will be the next step and once a month we come in to visit the kids and his family and of course every Sunday we meet everybody in the office because and then we get, like the guidance too, as a professional we need to, you know, every time we believe that we, every time, you every time need to learn. Of course when you work with people, people, it's really a dynamic thing and all the time need to learn how to become better, how to be more professional, what is the last research about that field, you know, we have a lot of special needs, kids that we work with this, you know, there is all the time a new research how you can help kids with special needs to become better, how they can be, take more bigger part in the society then we all the time read and learn about all that things. In your opinion, being a social worker, is it more difficult to work with kids than adults or vice versa or opposite? You know, I work a lot, actually I work most of my life with a teenager at risk, and I work for, let's say for three years, I work with very, let's say, high income, you know, very, like, people that come from very high income families and it was like people that learning in universities and college around Israel are very good and from my perspective, it's not like this one is more easy but the responsibility is less strict. It's less strict. When you work with kids it's really strict and it's all the time take you very much emotionally because sometimes it can be like let's say for example, sometimes it can be a girl that needs autodentist and I am the guy that take care of this and sometimes it takes time to get her the right autodentist and to fix her teeth but sometimes you say because I didn't work enough or I didn't have enough time she didn't get it on time or a kid sometimes we decide on one way or sometimes we need to get a really hard decision sometimes we need to get decision like this kid cannot stay in that family foster family anymore because they don't give him the right condition then it's a it's really, you know, it's a really from my perspective this is the difference when you work with people without everybody have issues in life even like people without you know, with a very tough background and very very good background and they have a very, let's say perfect life even they have some issue but when you come to kids that come for foster family the issues they are very big then your responsibility is very big then you emotionally it can be very hard to decide sometimes it took them out emotionally hard was it more harder let's see if I can phrase this was it more harder through COVID to get services for people than now? Yes, sure because especially for the spatial needs kids for them through COVID sometimes in the very tough time some of the schools even was closed and then we start to see families that you know they start to collapse they start to be broke because it's really sometimes, well in my opinion I think it's more difficult especially with special education kids sometimes can't do internet learning they need that one-on-one type of learning or classroom learning it's very hard to do internet school sometimes for people you're really right about the kids side and the other side is the parents side the parents it's really hard for them to all their the facilities that help them to grow the kids and give them a little bit hair to breathe focus on the walk do whatever they want because a lot of time kids with special needs need extra care and all of this gun for a very long time through COVID then this make a lot of challenges for us we support this family how we make it work even the facilities and it was really hard and we still see like things that going on because of of COVID not because of the disease because of the people being home all day do you think they're too... doing the social work do you think a lot of people have more anxiety being home and not outside and that kind of thing I can answer about that of course it's more when the COVID people without the support of the community it's less immune depression and all these things but what we can see I can tell you that there are more kids that need right now foster families there is more families that don't survive the COVID period we still through it hopefully it will end but we still see the impact of the quarantine and all the time people the kids didn't have their schools and their friends and it's really hard even for the system to carry all this okay so since you've been a social worker how talk about the severity of the severe part is it hard for parents to give up their child and then put them into a foster care system why or why not can you understand my point? I totally understand most of the time in Israel we are really careful with that thing we really believe that kids need to grow in his biologic family but there is a limit to that if parents behave in a way that they don't give the kids basic needs basic needs mean what? food, clothes clothes even emotions sometimes if they torture him emotionally then or let's say they abusing him or in mean of sex or physical then we have like the social worker facilities of the rail that kid need to take action and need to take this kid out but most of the time this is not the case this is like maybe between 5-10% of the time if the parents have a very severe thing and they can't grow the kid we even have sometimes if a parent have let's say cancer for example and she can grow her kids even for a temporary time a foster kid is a temporary solution we hope how is it a temporary solution? because if it's we see that the biologic parents they became fit again to grow the kids then we bring the kids back and we do a lot of effort to try to help the parents too to be fit again to grow the kids but most of the time this is why kids come to foster parents and this is why most of the kids come from like they come from a relative place like they come to a relatives and this make too a lot of difficult because a lot of time if kids come from a place that his parents either was good to him and then he go to his relative then a lot of time it stay the same like they believe that their way is the best talking about foster care now if a child or children you know brother or sister come from a violent home violent domestic violence any kind of violence if there is say two or more children do you find can you find or is it hard to find foster parents that want both the children or children are if it's a brother or sister is it hard to keep them together? actually it's a really good question we really did I ask that right? it's really good question cause we a lot of time try that if there is two brother and sister like you say or brother and brother or we try to put them together but let's say a lot of time specifically in the religious community there is family that collapse and there is six or seven and this is really hard for one family to contain but we try and what I can tell you that a lot of time it can help the kid well being separate? no being together but sometimes it's like it didn't work so well because one kid is really resistant to that family you know we try we do our best that it will work but sometimes the kid didn't want it didn't work together but this is a really good question this is one of the challenge that we try all the time to be better that we can put them together and you know it's really hard for foster family to take two kids together cause one it's really hard you know it's never like you know it's a lot of time I will not say never because never say never but it's it's really tough because kids that come for foster family they come with a lot of challenges and they have a tough background and they have the thing that they go through in their original family and sometimes they move from one foster family to another foster family then we try to make it work and we try that the parent will have enough power to make it work now in terms of the ages of the children is it harder to find foster families or babies or smaller like what are the ages that you work actually kids prefer to take babies because babies they feel that they can grow them from the start and they believe that this way they can help the kids the most and they don't have like a time that they don't know what happened to him if there's a situation where a parent doesn't want the child okay for example you place you place the kid with the foster family and then do you do like a trial period first or you know a trial period yeah yeah part of the family we do it we do it one year how do you say it trial period and trial means to start small we do it with part of the family but we do a really really deep of checking of background we really check the family very deep we call relatives we call the teachers we call reports about the family the foster family that want to get in and just then sorry no okay hold and just then we we start to we start the foster system you know we put them into the foster system but it's really hard to get it's really like yeah this is I hope answer to your question well we have a couple minutes left why is it that in Israel because you told me off camera that in Israel social workers only are only required to have a bachelor's degree and not a master's why is that is there a main reason I think for bachelor's degree you just can work in the facility but you can do like a therapy without master master of clinic if you want to actually treat people in the clinic then you need a master but I think it's like we work with people and they give us so obviously you go to a lot of training yeah we have a lot of training and we work and we all the time learn more and if you want to get some special specialty then you can go to to learn that to learn that in the start you just work with people you try to help them and you know it's never end you all the time learn and it's not like the degree that matter it's how much you learn how much you try to learn the people that you work with okay now there are pros last couple questions there are pros and cons you know bad and good to everything there are things you don't like about your job and things you do like about your job yeah the thing that I like is that you work with people this is really meaningful work you feel how you can sometimes change people lives and this is really feel you you feel how it was like that and now we very successful person and he do so much and you know and this is and you know you work with people that because they come to this they all the time want to help that it's really like a supportive place to work the people that you work with they're very nice they're really professional now the thing that I didn't work it's like I feel that the field need to be like more focus I think it's really hard to like to put what works and what not works with people like with kids with but I think we need to be more more evident proof therapy we need to go with the things that work to help the kids and we need to check it with that I didn't feel that the system is enough well she should go into this but it's still another thing we need to do which is really important especially during with all the violence and things going on in society we need to be a more loving society if we're a more loving society then you being a social worker can do a better job because then then the people that you're placing would appreciate more you know with all the things that are going on it's sometimes hard to do your job when it's not a loving society you need to be a more loving society yeah I think this is really true not just society loving families you know it's part of the problem start there and yeah I absolutely agree you know it's like if we will take care of people and we don't weigh them to collapse and we take them on time then a lot of the problem that became severe will not come up is anything else you want to add about your job or about the social work field you know do you have any advice that you would like to give to people to our viewing audience who want to become social workers yeah then I think it's a really interesting field I think that it will be people will need it more and more and more but I think you need to come to this profession with passion with love like you say and you need to be very modest too and you need to understand that you don't have all the knowledge you need to look on the people in the eyes and to understand what their needs and what their perspective on life and to try to find the common ground that you can work and we also need to not to be afraid we shouldn't be afraid to ask for help from a social worker if we need it yeah I think this is not just a social worker it's really it's really important every field like if you don't know to ask for help it's about modesty like you need to know that you have the you are not whole know you know you all the time have what to get from other people you don't know everything and when you know that you can ask for help and I really agree with that you know I think this is I all the time I think good social worker he asks more than what he's saying well I would like to thank you thank you all for having me Mr. Wacker for joining us on Abledon on Air for more information on Israel and its society if you want to like to find out more information on Israel services the best place to turn to is Nefis Benefis which can be found at www.nbn.org forward slash life in Israel again for more information on social work or any programs that Israel has to find out more information about you can go to www.nefisbenefis.org forward slash il life in Israel again this puts an end to this edition of Abledon on Air for more information on Abledon on Air you can go to www.orkamedia.net our leading is not here today I'm Lauren Seiler thank you to our sponsors Washington County Mental Health Green Mountain Support Services and many others I'm Lauren Seiler see you next time Major sponsors for Abledon on Air include Green Mountain Support Services empowering people with disabilities to live home in the community Washington County Mental Health where hope and support come together media sponsors for Abledon on Air include Park Chester Times Muslim Community Report www this is the Bronx.info Associated Press Media Editors New York Powered Online Newspaper U.S. Press Corps Domestic and International Anchor FM and Spotify Partners for Abledon on Air include Yechad of New York and New England where everyone belongs the Orthodox Union the Division for the Blind and Visionary Imperials of Vermont the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visionary Impaired Center for Vermont Habitat for Humanity and Montpelier Sustainable Coalition Montefiore Medical Center of the Bronx Rose of Kennedy Center of Bronx, New York Albert Einstein College of Medicine of the Bronx Abledon on Air has been seen in the following publications Park Chester Times www.TheChester Times www.TheChester Times www.ThisIsTheBronx.com New York Powered Online Newspaper Muslim Community Report www.H.com and The Montpelier Bridge Abledon on Air is part of the following organizations The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Boston, New England Chapter and the Society of Professional Journalists