{"id":2261,"date":"2010-07-18T13:49:24","date_gmt":"2010-07-18T18:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/?p=2261"},"modified":"2010-07-18T13:50:46","modified_gmt":"2010-07-18T18:50:46","slug":"relocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/2010\/07\/18\/relocation\/","title":{"rendered":"Relocation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our greatest concern with the move to Israel was what  we would find here for Ella, of course.\u00a0 What services, schools, etc.\u00a0 We were pretty sure we\u2019d find less than what we had in the Boston area.\u00a0 Etan came a couple months ahead of time for \u00a0a week-long reconnaissance trip, found a special needs school that seemed like it would work for us  and looked pretty good.\u00a0 So we made the move which was a ton of work that lasted about 3-4 months (two months preparation and two months getting  things set up here).\u00a0 We rented out our house in Newton Center.Unfortunately  the end of the period culminated with me getting sick with mononucleosis.\u00a0 I\u2019m probably one of the oldest people in history to get it and it put  quite a damper on things for awhile.<\/p>\n<p>To make a long story short, Ella has totally blossomed here and we are really happy with what we have found.\u00a0 While the regular school system leaves a lot to be desired, the Israeli special needs system is great.\u00a0 I would need a couple of hours (which I don\u2019t have) to write  about all the progress Ella has made and all the super services we have found  since we came here. I won\u2019t bore you with the details but there are a few  things I\u2019ve learned that I thought I might share with the group:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The \u201cintegrated\u201d model doesn\u2019t work for all special needs kids.\u00a0 For many, a special needs  school is probably a better option as I think it has been for Ella<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>For a child that can handle it, socializing between children is very, very important and this requires some \u201ccategorizing\u201d of children, in other words putting  children together in programs with other children with similar needs and abilities.\u00a0 Labeling is kind of a no-no in the States, but it has been helpful for Ella.\u00a0 She goes to an after-school program that she loves  with children with similar cognitive abilities (she\u2019s categorized having  \u201cmild retardation\u201d).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Although have a single family home, with land around it may be the American dream (as it is the Israeli dream) our one-floor, smallish (by American standards) apartment  has allowed Ella so much more independence and a chance to really make  strides with gross motor skills and confidence building<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Don\u2019t be afraid of change; you never know what you will find<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Since things have worked out okay and well, frankly, really pretty well for Ella, we have decided to stay on at least for another year.\u00a0 We still have plenty of issues going the foremost of which in my mind is the amount of physical help Ella still needs when she is at home  (i.e., getting dressed, taking shower, playing, etc) which leaves so little  time for me and Etan to socialize and have our own lives, hobbies and interests,  outside of our work.\u00a0 I still feel I need a support group and haven\u2019t had time  to join one!<\/p>\n<p>The most amazing progress Ella has made, in short, is in the reading\/language category.\u00a0\u00a0 She now speaks both Hebrew and English although it is kind of difficult to understand her.\u00a0 We have a private teacher that comes 2 times a week to work with her on reading and she is  doing great.\u00a0 Next year she will be in a totally accessible school for  children at her cognitive level and above.\u00a0 We are looking forward to that.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Etan and I were so impressed by resources available at this public special needs school that we were in shock after the first visit and are  so pleased that they have room for Ella for next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our greatest concern with the move to Israel was what we would find here for Ella, of course.\u00a0 What services, schools, etc.\u00a0 We were pretty sure we\u2019d find less than what we had in the Boston area.\u00a0 Etan came a couple months ahead of time for \u00a0a week-long reconnaissance trip, found a special needs school [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ellaslog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4PM2I-At","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2261"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2263,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions\/2263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}