The Parent and Family Guidance Unit

The Parent and Family Guidance Unit is an open psychiatric department that provides services at Galilee Medical Center.

The unit provides guidance and treatment to children between the ages of 6-18, and their families, who suffer from emotional and psychological disorders and have not found appropriate treatment within the community framework.

Our guiding principle is to provide intensive interdisciplinary treatment in cooperation with the staff, the family and the hospitalized child. This approach aims to introduce the child to options for self-expression and personalized learning and to foster better understanding of children's needs by parents as well as to reinforce parental authority.

The department serves children and adolescents from northern Israel between the ages of 6-18 who suffer from emotional and psychological pathologies such as behavior disorders, eating disorders, and personality disorders, emotional and psychological difficulties that result from physical illnesses, mood disorders and other issues at early stages that do not pose any danger to themselves or others.

The department team includes physicians, nurses, family therapists, psychologists, occupational therapists, and social counselors. The department operates a school under the supervision of the Ministry of Education where patients study in accordance with their level and abilities. The staff includes special education teachers and teaching assistants as well as art, drama and movement therapists.

In addition, following evaluation to determine eligibility, daily outpatient care is available for children between the ages of 6-12, instead of fulltime hospitalization.  The children in this program arrive each morning to receive their assigned treatment and study in the department school and then return home each afternoon.