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The Weinberg Child Development Center at Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital, Tel Hashomer offers multidisciplinary evaluation and treatment for children with developmental disabilities from neonates through adolescence. The Center has treated children with disabilities or at risk for developmental difficulties for more than 15 years, and is among the first three centers in the country.
The Center currently provides clinical services to approximately 1000 new children per year, and sees approximately 700 ongoing patients per month. Our team comprises more than 60 professionals from all related areas. Clinical services include comprehensive diagnostic assessments, ongoing medical, orthopedic, psychological, occupational, physical and speech therapies, teaching and support groups.
The Centers includes three daycare facilities for disabled children and care is provided daily to the children by a professional team of teachers, therapists and consultants.
In addition, the Center provides training to students and professionals from all related fields and advocacy for families through agencies that provide services for children with disabilities.
The Weinberg Child Development Center is part of the Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital and of Sheba Tel Hashomer Medical Center, which is the largest and most comprehensive medical center in Israel. Sheba is one of the most prominent teaching and research hospitals and is affiliated with Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and it houses the Gertner institute for health policy and epidemiology and the National Education Center for training healthcare.
Aims:
• to advance the children with delay or disability to the maximum level of independence and social integration according to their personal potential
• to advance the standard of care for children with developmental disabilities by research and development of tools to improve prevention, early detection, treatment and outcome
• to support families and provide them with knowledge and tools to support the disabled child and continue to function in society
• to educate professionals working with children and families of individuals with developmental disabilities
• to educate normally developing children and families in prevention of developmental delays and in acceptance of individuals with disabilities
Procedures:
Children are referred by all HMOs, Well-Baby Clinics, pediatricians, community services, educational, psychological and social services.
The children undergo extensive evaluation by the professional staff according to their specific problems. Each team includes physicians (neurologists or developmental pediatricians), psychologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech therapists and social workers. Treatment is offered on an individual basis and tailored to the needs of the child and his family.
Annually, about 1000-1100 new children are evaluated and about ten thousand treatments are provided by the center.
Which children are candidates for evaluation and treatment at the center?
• Infants and premature babies at risk for developmental delay or impairment.
• Infants and children who demonstrate developmental difficulties, in any of the following domains: motor skills (gross and fine), speech and language, communication and behavior.
• Children with congenital syndromes such as Down syndrome; Fragile-X and other chromosomal defects.
• Children suffering from sensory deficits such as blindness, low vision or hearing defect.
What else is offered at the center?
Special Areas of Expertise at the Weinberg Center:
• Keshet Center (Rainbow)- evaluation and intervention for children and adolescents with communication disorders (severe language impairment; Pervasive Developmental Disorders-PDD; Autism, Asperger's)
• Fragile X clinic
• Fetal Evaluation Team (detection of prenatal abnormalities)- in collaboration with the Obstretics, Genetics and Neonatology departments
• Orthopedic clinic for children with cerebral palsy
• Evaluation of craniofacial abnormalities- in collaboration with Plastic Surgery Department
Special Education:
• A Diagnostic Kindergarten for children above 3 years.
• A Rehabilitation Oriented Kindergarten for children above 3 years.
• A Special Day-Care unit for children under 3 years.
Groups:
• Support groups for parents
• Occupational therapy before first and second grade
• Social Skills group (planned)
• Staff training workshops
• KESHET CENTER for research and treatment of language, communication and autism spectrum disorders
Present and future directions:
1. The main goal of the center is to bring the child to the maximum level of independence and social integration according to his/ her personal potential. Evaluation should be performed by using "gold standard" tools and follow up should be performed until specific goals are achieved and maintained.
2. Since the center is part of the Edmond & Lily Safra Children's Hospital, the Child Development Center serves as a tertiary referral center for community child development centers and provides expert care to children with extremely complex disabilities. The collaborative effort with the Children's Hospital is aimed towards early surveillance and detection of children in need, early treatment and prevention. The hospital provides consultants in all medical fields concerning children's health and the Child Development Center works in close contact with Neurology, Genetics, Neonatology, Rehabilitation, Orthopedics and other departments so that care of the children is oriented towards both developmental and medical needs.
3. Research in one of the major goals of the center. The Weinberg Child Development Center is an academic center and has appointments with Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. Multiple research projects have been initiated and requests for research grants have been submitted in order to become Center of Excellence in research. Multicenter proposals are currently being evaluated and a collaborative research project with the Cody Center for Autism Research (NY, USA) was launched recently (Dr. Gabis has an appointment as Visiting Research Scientist with the Cody Center).
4. Teaching and education of physicians and students from all medical related fields are part of the ongoing commitment of the center, and this effort is currently being extended to family support, education of teachers of children with special needs and of personnel providing care in the community. This includes supervision of teams from five affiliated treatment units in the community. In the future we will develop a curriculum to increase awareness and to provide guidelines for parents and teachers.
5. Resource Center- in order to provide families and professionals with information and tools to treat children with disabilities, the establishment of a fully equipped interactive library is planned.
6. Informatics:
• A large project of transition to electronic files is planned. This project is essential for the future progress of the center and will enable optimization of patients' management and utilization of manpower. Furthermore, this will provide an organized database that will enable multiple outcome studies. Funding for this project is being sought at present.
• Screening instruments will be included in the database and will provide important diagnostic and epidemiological information
• A newsletter will be composed and sent to the families and related personnel every 2-3 months. It will include information and medical news in laymen terms, procedures, ongoing research and study subjects recruitment in areas concerning disabilities and care.
We are grateful for the support of Weinberg Child Development Center at the Sheba Medical Center through Tel Hashomer Guild.
| Center at a Glance |
| Number of outpatients per year - 12000 |
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Director - Dr. Lidia Gabis
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| Address - The Weinberg Child Development Center |
| E-mail - Lidia.Gabis@sheba.health.gov.il |
| Tel - 972-3-530-2592 |
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