Evaluation of SOIR’s Day Centre in Al Bireh 2013.

Project Overview

The Swedish Organization for Individual Relief (SOIR) is one of the key civil organization that plays a big role in the field of disability , it started its work in Jerusalem in 1966 to target the persons with intellectual disabilities. In 1981-1982 it established the Day Center which is currently located in Al Bireh for the purpose of training teenagers and young adults. It aims at enabling boys and girls/young men and women to enjoy their right to develop their personality, talents and creativity, as well as their mental and physical abilities. Now it has 15 participants whose age ranged between 14 – 34 years old from the area of Ramallah, Al Bireh, Bethounia, and Hizme. They receive training in daily life skills, physiotherapy, speech therapy, suitable educational training, and pre-vocational training. The Day has during 2012 started to introduce self-advocacy in the work to help parents became more involved and received training in self-advocacy and how to advocate the rights of their sons and daughters in the society and towards decision-makers. The historic focus of the training at the Day Centre has been on special education, but nowadays the mainly occupational therapy methods are used for work with and training of youth and adults with intellectual disabilities. This led SOIR to an important question which if a special education approach is suitable to continue or if training methods should change to be in alignment with an occupational therapy approach. To this end SOIR need to conduct an evaluation to the current used training methods in comparison with occupational therapy methods. SOIR has contracted GCT to undertake this assignment in effective and professional manner. The main objective of this evaluation study was to determine the quality of current working methods at the Day Center and to find possibilities for developing the work and training methods on one hand. The expected outcomes of this study were to serve as a guiding document for future developments which will guide the implementation of the recommendations and future work at SOIR’s Day Centre.