The Rehabilitation Program was initiated in 1989, to provide quality rehabilitation services for the youth injured due to the political violence during the first Palestinian uprising “Intifada”. The goal was to re-integrate the youth into their communities and enhance their living conditions. 

The Rehabilitation Program has evolved through the years to become one of the leading rehabilitation services on the national level that address mental health and economic independency for Persons with Disabilities survivors of political violence. The program adapts a holistic approach for the provision of services, which includes psychosocial counselling, vocational training, community mobilization and advocacy initiatives, with the aim to empower young people and support the realization of their rights to participate in the social and economic life and improve their wellbeing.   

The Rehabilitation Program aims at contributing to enhanced psycho-social wellbeing, empowerment, and the inclusion of people with disabilities and survivors of political violence. Mainly, the RP strives to achieve an enhanced mental health and inclusion of targeted beneficiaries and their families’, enhanced capacities of MHPSS practitioners, and enhanced level of rights holders and duty bearers’ engagement (primary and secondary) to uphold the rights of targeted beneficiaries.

Our Services

Through the implementation of right-based approaches, the RP delivers quality, comprehensive and holistic mental health and vocational training services across the West Bank, that include: 

Psychosocial counselling: to address psychosocial impacts of disability and trauma, through group and/or individual counselling sessions. 
Family intervention: To raise the awareness of caregivers on the rights and needs of their children, in addition to the provision of psychosocial counselling to enable them to better support their children.  

Remedial Education: we support the re-enrolment and inclusion of children with disabilities and survivors of political violence within the formal education system. 

Vocational rehabilitation: Provision of vocational assessment using standardized tools, delivering vocational training and counselling, to enhance the economic independency of young people and support their access to the labour market. 

Physical and environmental adaptations: to enhance accessibility measures for PwDs, the RP works on improving physical adaptations to the home environment, schools and public facilities to promote independency and accessibility to equal opportunities. 

Provision of medical assistive aid: to meet basic and urgent medical needs for PwDs which help promotes their health condition and meet their daily medical needs such as provision of medical consumables. 

Community engagement and awareness raising: to eliminate misinformation and disinformation about rights and needs of PwDs, advance positive change towards inclusion, and enhance the realization of their rights to equal access to services, and participation in the social and economic life. 

Capacity Development: Training at the internal, national and international levels: to constantly upgrade capacities of MHPSS professionals to maximize quality of interventions and ensure the most recent updated methodologies that adhere to international standards are enforced. 

Lobbying and advocacy: EJ-YMCA is a member of the Palestinian General Union for Persons with disabilities, The Palestinian Coalition for Disability, and ACT Alliance.  In partnership with relevant stakeholders and key actors, the RP works towards national legal frame work amendments, and participate in developing local and national policies and strategies to ensure realization of the rights and needs of PwDs. 

Networking and coordination: Also, the EJ-YMCA Rehabilitation Program coordinates and facilitates accessibility to quality and comprehensive services for our beneficiaries, through a referral mechanism with our different partners, stakeholders, and service providers. 

Research: The RP conducts regular research activities to investigate new approaches and trends in the field of mental health and vocational training, assess and analysis community needs, gaps and new interventions and programming in addition to documenting and sharing knowledge of applied approaches and interventions. Examples include: Training Manual on Psychosocial Support and Mental Health.