About Goshen

Goshen promotes the health and wellbeing of all children within their families within the community, by enhancing the ability of child healthcare providers from all professions to respond to the wide-ranging health needs of children, enhancing the use and dissemination of evidence-based knowledge and practice, advocating for multidisciplinary service delivery, and supporting parents in collaboration with all community services.

Education and training

Goshen aspires to promote a new model of integrative and collaborative work health-education-welfare-community among medical professionals (pediatricians and general practitioners), pediatric nurses (including family health centers nurses), early childhood workers, schoolteachers and counselors, psychologists, welfare workers and community social workers. In addition to the current courses and seminars for pediatricians and family doctors, Goshen will offer seminars and courses for community doctors and residents in pediatrics, courses and seminars for other professionals working with children, workshops for professionals on specific subjects and multidisciplinary seminars.

Furthermore, Goshen supports pediatricians taking a fellowship program (1-2 years) in leading medical centers around the world, to specialize in community paediatric. This year, two paediatricians will start a fellowship program at the Community Child Health Centre at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, supported by Goshen.

Disseminating and translating knowledge and information

Goshen has set for itself the goal of making comprehensive and relevant knowledge accessible to specific target audiences: parents, physicians, healthcare professionals, education and welfare workers. Our goal is to enable easy access of parents and professionals to evidence-based knowledge on child wellbeing and parenting, through website, facebook page, printed materials, seminars, etc.

Our website provides a comprehensive outlook with regard to child development and care including development, attachment, safety, sleep, play, nutrition, learning and more. A professional committee oversees the website content to ensure that the materials are of high quality, and thatdifferent disciplines and viewpoints are represented.

Our On-line magazine, adapted for each of our target audiences, is distributed periodically and includes up-to-date professional articles, the new items on the website, details of upcoming training programs, seasonal events and other relevant information, according to the specific audience.

Research

As an academic center, Goshen aspires to generate clinical researches on relevant topics, including mapping unmet parents’ needs, policy and program evaluation. We aim to engage in research on several levels:

• Clinical research focusing on child health and development, and the impact of environmental and psycho-social factors on children’s health, development and learning.
• Evaluation of Goshen activities and of different community programs.
• Literature review in various fields, adapted to different target audiences – including parents and policy makers.
• Interdisciplinary research to examine the needs addressed by different disciplines, the solutions they offer and the gaps between needs and services as experienced by parents and professionals.

Advocacy

In order to promote the health and wellbeing of all children and their families, especially in the social periphery of Israel, it is necessary to change public policy in various areas so that children and families will benefit from high-level multi-disciplinary services addressing health, educational, emotional and family needs. In order to influence policy, Goshen- serving as a professional organization, will work with opinion leaders and policy makers in the different fields, including the healthcare, education and welfare system, finance and more.

Goshen, with its unique view of child health and wellbeing, takes part of relevant public committees and present its perspective regarding child health, development and well-being.

Community programs

Goshen strives to be involved in designing future community programs, with an emphasis in the geographic and social periphery of Israel, for children and their families, while contributing evidence-based professional knowledge and helping to plan, implement and evaluate the programs.