Elisheva Nistenfauber
Hello, my name is Elisheva Nistenfauber. I have been an occupational therapist in the field of children for about 18 years, of which 14 years I have been working with different populations in special education settings at the Ministry of Education. In the past I worked at the same time as working at the Ministry of Education and at the Child Development Institute. Following the comparison between the institute and the educational frameworks, I felt a significant difference regarding the relationship with the parents between the various frameworks. I was surprised that parents do not take a more significant part in the occupational therapy treatment that takes place in educational settings. It is known that parental involvement in treatment promotes it, yet in the framework of special education there is not a sufficiently close and ongoing connection between the occupational clinics and the children's parents. When I applied for a master's degree in occupational therapy at Tel Aviv University in a project track, my ambition was to get parents to be more involved in their children's treatments in special education settings. Basically, my vision was to narrow the gap between the importance of parental involvement in treatment, and the situation in the field, where the occupational clinic works mainly with the child and the educational staff. I conducted a literature review on the subject, consulted with a national guide for occupational therapy and with a focus group of occupational clinics. In addition, I conducted a survey for parents and occupational clinics and proved that the gap does exist. Later, I thought about how it could be reduced and built the assessment for the use of the clinic in dealing with the special education frameworks.


