ABSTRACT
The existing statistical data encompass no more than very limited and defined portions of the knowledge about children. Lacking, for example, is information on Arab children before the age of kindergarten. The information available regarding children of school age is also very limited. The institutions entrusted with services to children in Israel are many indeed: state, public, and private. But the principal agency in charge of the provision of social welfare services for children is the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, under the Child Welfare Act of 1958. The chapter focuses on main subjects relating to social welfare services for the child, and draws on a line, even in a most arbitrary manner, between elementary services provided to the entire population of children, and support services, special services, or extraordinary welfare services. Various research studies and publications repeatedly sounded the alarm concerning the troubling school drop-out rate of Arab children, especially at a young age.
