The “House on Haim Street” – Sachlav Haifa: A Follow-up of the Youth, the Program’s Contribution

The “House on Haim Street” is designed to serve as an accessible temporary residence for youth who, for some reason, cannot or will not live at home and are often disengaged from normative frameworks, such as school and employment. In addition, the House serves to mediate between the youth and their families and the social services and attempts to find them long-term solutions in the community. The House is one of four care and intervention units that operate as one system as part of Sachlav, a unique program implemented in Haifa for youth at risk and in distress.

The study’s main goal was to provide the program’s planners and implementers with information on the youth’s situation since leaving the House, the House’s contributions to, and influence on, the youth, the youth’s evaluation of the House and their satisfaction with it, and also Sachlav’s integration into the system of services for youth in Haifa. Another study on the characteristics of the population served by Sachlav, the work methods of the care and intervention units and the organizational design of the program was conducted at the same time by the Interdisciplinary Center for Children and Youth Studies at Tel-Aviv University. This publication reports on a follow-up of youth age 12-22, who stayed at the House during its first two years of operation. Information was gathered by telephone interviews with 119 youth and 176 professionals who had worked with them. The interviews took place between 3 months to 2 years from the time that the youth left the House. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with key persons at the services in the community and with Sachlav workers. The findings of the study highlight the House’s contribution to providing basic and immediate solutions, as well as emotional support, in emergency situations. However, its ability to provide long-term solutions is limited, in light of the target population’s difficult background and the short intervention period. Selected findings:

  • The average stay at the House was six weeks.
  • Most of the youth and the service staff expressed much satisfaction with the physical conditions at the House, the provision of basic needs, the counseling and the warm and sensitive atmosphere. The youth praised the accepting atmosphere and the opportunity to take a time-out to plan their future steps with the House staff.
  • The House succeeded in finding potentially permanent living solutions for those youth who came from the street or had no regular residence. At the same time, there was frequent mobility among residences after leaving the House.
  • Two thirds of the youth were under the care of some service at the time of the interview, mostly social-educational community care.
  • The youth experienced many difficulties after leaving the House: over a third engaged in risk behaviors, such as drug abuse and loitering. Half do not attend school, and over half reported periods of over two months when they neither studied nor worked. These findings raise the need for establishing a follow-up mechanism and ascertaining that for each youth there is a professional in one of the community services who is assigned responsibility for ensuring that the care plan devised at the House with members of the services’ staff is being implemented.
  • The House population is heterogeneous and includes girls and boys, young and old, immigrants and non-immigrants and Arabs and Jews. Differences were found among these groups, indicating a need to find specific solutions for each group. For example, the older the youth, the more they are disconnected from the services, and the harder it is to find them places of residence and stable occupations.

The findings were presented to policymakers and field staff. They provide a basis for improving the House and Sachlav’s relationship with the services for youth in Haifa. The study was initiated by Ashalim and was funded with its assistance.