In addition, military occupation by Israel means that many children have had experience of political violence, either upon themselves or witnessed or indirectly experienced through friends and family. Many are severely traumatized by it. For some patients, if SCC were not providing health and social care they would have access to none, and for the majority the services they require are only available to them at SCC.
The Center
The Spafford Children's Center has always been highly responsive to the needs of the families of Jerusalem and neighboring villages and provides a developing program of services. Its principal activity remains the comprehensive medical care of babies, children and mothers, but the importance of its other departments increases every year (see Activities for more information).
Long-serving staff, and
patients who are often the third-, or even fourth-generation to bring their
children to SCC, all contribute to the caring family atmosphere and to making
the Center a place of trust and respect in the Old City and beyond. Patient
participation in the planning, monitoring and delivery of services strengthens
this bond.
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At the same time SCC is forward-looking and highly professional, and has pioneered the use of new techniques in dealing with trauma. It is recognized as a center of excellence: nurses and other health-care professionals from Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza come to work with us as trainees. We are unusual, in an area of sectarian conflict, in having Muslims and Jews, and Christians of eight denominations among our staff. |
All SCC's activities
are now closely monitored at every level and evaluated by participants in
all courses and activities. Partner organisations are invited to contribute
criticism or comment. This has proved very useful as a tool for planning,
and a confirmation that the services already offered have the full approval
of those who use them.
The Spafford's Children Center is unique in offering an integrated and wide range of activities, including a medical centre, a psycho-social department, special education and diverse therapies for damaged and traumatised children. The benefit in the delivery of each of these services, of having all the others under the same roof is incalculable.
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The Old City of Jerusalem The Spafford Children's
Center provides healthcare, special education and psycho-social services
for disadvantaged children in the Old City of Jerusalem and its surrounding
areas. Unemployment is high. Overcrowding, malnutrition and associated diseases, economic degradation, and the atmosphere of tension all contribute to making the problems addressed by SCC critical. |
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In the winter of 1925 an impoverished Arab father whose wife had died begged Horatio's daughter, Bertha Spafford Vester, to take his infant son into her care. She did so, and the child became the first of many motherless children to whom she gave a home in the old house. The medical care given to her children was the best available and gradually became the principal activity of SCC. In time the Center became a hospital with 60 beds: it was the only children's hospital in the Old City and the West Bank until 1970. It subsequently became the day-clinic it is today.
Now a day-clinic offering an integrated range of services, the Spafford Children's Center has consistently risen to the challenges created by changing health needs in Jerusalem throughout the last century. Its history goes back to the 'American Colony of Jerusalem' which was founded by Horatio Spafford. He came to Jerusalem from Chicago with a group of friends in 1881 and they lived in the house now occupied by Spafford Children's Center. During World War I when famine and plague ravaged the city it became a soup kitchen for the people of Jerusalem. The Colony also ran Turkish military hospitals for casualties of the fighting.
