Residential Education as an Option for At-Risk Youth: Learning from the Israeli Experience

In January 1993, a group of American professionals in the field of child and youth services gathered in Jerusalem for a ten-day seminar designed to enable them to explore Israeli residential group care programs. Their objective was to glean information 4that might be helpful in enhancing services to marginal, disattached youth in the United States. A brief description of the existing need in the U.S. is followed by an overview of the history of such programs in Israel and their underlying conceptualizations. Seven Israeli programs are then described in depth as the basis for the elaboration of 17 philosophical and programmatic themes that emerged from the observations as issues for possible consideration in the U.S. context.