“It took five years, but the case finally reached its happy ending,” a Pele Yoetz case manager summed up a long and complex case that the organization escorted with sensitivity and discretion over the course of half a decade.
Pele Yoetz’s case management department is one of the departments that you might never hear about if you don’t read this article, but the behind-the-scenes work that it does, day in and day out, for months and sometimes years at a time has saved lives and families. It is here that individuals and families receive immediate response, constant care, a guiding hand, and steady followup, helping them deal with excruciating situations and leading them to a place of inner satisfaction and consolation.
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman, longtime case manager, reveals a drop in the bucket of what really goes on at Pele Yoetz’s case management department, and this drop is the most he can expose. “Here, discretion is vital, no less so than professionalism,” he explains. And it’s true.
The process begins with the initial appeal, when an individual suffering from any emotional or mental issue approaches Pele Yoetz for help. Individuals or families who appeal to Pele Yoetz are from the cream of charedi society in Yerushalayim and its environs, and “They know that Pele Yoetz is the very first place to turn for help,” says Rabbi Feldman.
The receptionist accepts the calls with utmost sensitivity, collects pertinent information, and relays it promptly to the Case Management Department—marking it all as highly confidential. The department workers evaluate the situation with the aid of professionals and then transfer it to Pele Yoetz Center Nasi Hagaon Harav Dovid Levi shlit”a who reviews the evaluation and recommendations carefully and determines whom to approach for professional therapy and treatment, or when necessary, psychiatric care.
Yet this is only the first stage. Once the individual or family has been referred to the proper party, Pele Yoetz continues following up until the problem is resolved and/or benefiting from effective treatment, and the case can officially be closed.
Shares R’ Yaakov: “There are times when a case is handled right here in the Center and closed after several days or weeks. But there are other situations that warrant long-term treatment that can stretch across months of even years. Just recently, we were able to close a case after five years. There was a family that approached us five years ago that was suffering from serious issues and friction that sparked numerous problems, and after five years of professional intervention and counseling, everyone could finally say that they’d attained the satisfaction and happiness that they were yearning for.”
As one husband and father who received therapy on the recommendation of Pele Yoetz put it so aptly, “Pele Yoetz is the kupat cholim for the heart and soul of the charedi community in Eretz Yisrael.”
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