About us
The Israeli Protection Center was established in view of providing a wide array of intervention services nationwide for victims of sexual assault. The Center is the first such organization in Israel to offer a broad spectrum of assistance under one roof. The Center will offer victims and their families comprehensive therapy programs, with a commitment to involve professionals as long as the rehabilitation process requires. At the same time, the Center will promote governmental programs for the prevention and reduction of sexual assault by means of an interministerial committee. The programs will focus on increasing exposure to reports to law enforcement agencies, preventing and identifying sexual assault as well as running ‘immunity’ programs.
The Center’s activities will aspire to uncompromising professionalism and will be based on scientific research in view of constantly improving effectiveness. The Center will thereby provide assistance to the entire Israeli society of all ages, including adapted assistance for specific populations.
The Israeli Protection Center will operate in a true mission and strong belief that its goal-oriented activity will bring about significant change by decreasing the magnitude of sexual violence, while increasing the sense of security in children, youth, women, men and their families.
Main fields of activities
Responding to victims:
The Center will constitute an emotional emergency room for victims and their surroundings. As such, it will offer an intervention program that will be adapted according to the preferences of the victims and their families, as well as establishing contact with therapists, reporting to the legal authorities, filing lawsuits and obtaining information about legal rights. The therapy program will be expanded to the victims’ families based on the establishment of a fund for this purpose. Victims will be closely accompanied by a SELAH volunteer (Crime Victim Support Services) during the implementation of the intervention until the completion of the program. One of the Center’s objectives is to fund therapy for victims of sexual offences who avoid turning to public institutions. Moreover the Center will promote therapy for offenders by making therapy options available to them and their families in an effort to advance rehabilitation of offenders in accordance with the definition of the law enforcement agencies.
Prevention strategies:
For the community to remain united, the Center will run empowering ‘immunity’ programs adjusted to the different populations. The programs will also set up a network of facilitators to run workshops for the children of Israel. Moreover, continuing education seminars geared at school teachers and parents will be held in order to help them identify first signs of sexual assault.
Furthermore the Center will prepare a program geared at representatives of law enforcement authorities (e.g. police officers, social workers, prosecutors, child investigators, medical staff) about specific characteristics of Israel’s various communities.
Activities for the prevention of sexual violence will include training protection trustees from concerned social subgroups, who will act as agents for the change of awareness in ‘opinion leaders’ within their communities. The Center will endeavor to make the knowledge about prevention widely accessible by launching an online support library.
Research:
In its endeavor to strive for professionalism in the establishment of optimal assistance and education services, the Center will promote cooperation with academic institutions to carry out targeted studies related to core issues that have not yet received sufficient attention by research and that will contribute to the improvement of therapy for the population of both offenders and victims with special characteristics.