This program is part of the ongoing Social Welfare Network created by the ECJC JDC Social Welfare committee, which is composed by an array of Welfare services and organisations from all across Europe.
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The aim is to increase the level of learning experiences and best practices sharing among Jewish organisations across Europe.
Highlights of the Annual Conference
Providers of care or Community Builders?
Coping with crisis. Building resilient Services
Integrated Care: Concept of Community Building through care
Collaborations with other organisations/national & city Welfare systems
Visits to different Dutch Social Services - Shoah Survivors, Elderly programmes, special needs children and Dementia Village
What can we do to strengthen the resilience capacities of our clients to cope with potential community emergencies and lessen the impact of such events?
Our organisations face the potential of having to cope with a future community crisis. These events could be varied and can include events of terror, anti-Semitism, social and economic crises, natural disasters, large accidents and more
Even if these events have a major impact on all of our community members, research and experience have shown that almost always the elderly and other populations with special needs pay a disproportionally high physical and psychological toll in such events.
Dr. Nies is a Professor of Organisation and Policies in Long-term Care at the Vrije Universitteit Amsterdam and specializes in the field of care for elders.
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He has dedicated his years of research on Quality Management and Dignity in long-term care and on the way integrated care, its chains and networks should operate.
He is member of the Executive Board of Vilans, Centre of Expertise for Long-term Care and maintains a blog at Skipr, journal for health care management in the Netherlands.
His work has been included in over 20 publications in the last decade and he has delivered numerous presentations and lectures in care-related Conferences all over Europe.
Prof. Dr. Mirella Minkman is a distinguished Professor of Innovation of organization and governance of integrated long term care (Vilans Chair) and Director Research and Innovation at Vilans. She has extensive experience in the field of health care organization, collaboration issues and change processes. Her research focuses on how to organize and govern person centered and integrated care and welfare in our highly dynamic environment. As the health and welfare domain is subject to structural changes and transformation, clients, professionals and boards are correspondingly confronted with challenges that have become increasingly complex. Mirella Minkman’s studies focus on what ingredients are essential and present in the organization and the government of integrated care, how they can interact and develop over time and what innovative concepts are possible and effective.
Mirella Minkman studied nursing at the HAN University of Applied Sciences, followed by Health Sciences at Maastricht University. In 2012 she obtained her PhD from Erasmus University with research in the integrated chain of care field, for which she won the EHMA/Karolinska Research award. Before becoming Program Leader of Innovation and Research at Vilans, Minkman worked as Program Leader in Elder Care at Vilans, led large scale implementation programs such as Zorg voor Beter and the National Dementia Program, and worked for the Dutch Institute for Healthcare Improvement CBO and in the Radboud University Medical Center. Alongside her position at Vilans, she is a supervisor at the Inovum Foundation and Board Editor for the International Journal for Integrated Care, among other things. Minkman is author and co-author of seven books in the field of health care and has publications in a range of professional literature, including internationally.
His PhD-research focuses on shifting boundaries in the field of long-term care. He analyses the rapidly changing policy context, the sector’s traditional division of roles and responsibilities and how they are being challenged. He is trying to address how for several types of care and support, people should first find solutions through their private resources, social networks or voluntary support structures, before making use of publicly funded professional services and that at the same time, people should have more ownership and control over long-term care services.
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Professionals and their organizations face the challenge of responding to this ‘paradigm shift’ and the following questions. How are new meanings of ‘professional’ and ‘community’ being negotiated? How do professional actors ‘make space’ for increased community involvement and ownership? What does it imply for how they organize their services? And in this process of ‘making space’, how do they make sense of issues such as risk, responsibility and liability?
In his research he studies the symbolic boundaries by which actors make sense of what happens in their field, as well as the actual governance practices that lead to (or obstruct) alignment between the professional domain and the life world of citizens and their communities.
Prof. Beersma specialises on Team Performance and Improment. Her main field of focus are:Â
 - Team functioning and performance
 - Negotiation and post-negotiation processes and outcomes
 - Conflict management
 - Workplace coaching
 - The social functions of gossip in teams
Her research focuses on how the dilemma between individual and collective interests can be managed to foster cooperation, collaboration, and effective group performance. For group members, collaborating means they have to find a balance between their own interests and those of the group. This can both create challenges and opportunities, and she examines the ways in which individuals and groups deal with this. As such, her studies focus on the motivational and contextual factors that drive behavior in settings such as teamwork, negotiation and interpersonal conflict.
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In her research, she employs various methods, such as experiments, vignette studies, surveys, and concept mapping.
Ms. Marlen Maor is a clinical psychologist, a supervisor, and the Director of Ashkelon area, part of  the southern branch of "AMCHA "
 ."AMCHA", is a non-profit social service organization which provides advanced social and psychological services to Holocaust survivors and their families. In recent years AMCHA took their expertise in Trauma and the Elderly to the field of resilience and coping to other populations in need.
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AMCHA is also, a member organization in the Israel Trauma Coalition (ITC), and is expanding its activities to include support in times of crises and emergency.
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Ms. Maor is the chief psychologist also responsible for the internship of clinical psychologists in the Ashkelon branch. She has been giving lectures, workshops, and training groups throughout her professional career, in Israel and Europe, about supporting various trauma patients.Â
Ms. Maor has worked with children, soldiers, adults and the elderly in her different roles in the army, the Ministry of Defense, a psychiatric hospital, providing treatment for clients’ patients and supervision for professionals.
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Ms Maor studied in the Israeli Institute of Group Analysis and works with different groups, in therapy and supervision.
She earned her B.Sc and M.A in Clinical Psychology from Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheba.
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She has a private clinic in Kfar Harief.
Ms. Dalia Sivan is the director of Northern branches of AMCHA, the Israeli center providing psychosocial services to holocaust survivors who live in northern Israel, and to their families. AMCHA provides psychotherapy to survivors and their families at reduced rates, as well as home care and community activities for that population. AMCHA Northern branches include offices in the cities of Haifa, its suburbs, Kiriat Motzkin, Naharia Hadera, Pardes Hanna, Acre, Safed, Tiberius Carmiel and employing over 100 psychologists and social workers and aided by more than 170 volunteers. AMCHA is a member organization in the Israel Trauma Coalition (ITC), and is expanding its activities to include support for the general population in times of national disaster and times of crisis.
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Ms. Sivan is a clinical social worker and psychotherapist with experience in individual, family and group therapy, and in the field of trauma and bereavement. She earned her B.S.W. from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and her M.S.W. from the Catholic University in Washington, D.C.