Standing at the Crossroads

By ARIEL DOMINIQUE HENDELMAN

Published: DECEMBER 30, 2016 12:00

Updated: DECEMBER 7, 2020 14:40

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski (left) with Crossroads executive director Robbie Sassoon during the opening talk at the December 12 conference (photo credit: ROBBIE SASSOON) — Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski (left) with Crossroads executive director Robbie Sassoon during the opening talk at the December 12 conference

(photo credit: ROBBIE SASSOON)

A Jerusalem-based NGO works to help at-risk teens find their way.

Israel is a hub for many gap-year programs – from educational or more volunteer-focused, to religious studies.

Many of the young adults on these programs have needs that are not currently being met because program leaders and counselors don’t have the proper training or staff on hand to deal with situations like mental illness, addiction or trauma.

Crossroads, which was founded in 2001 in response to the increasing number of English-speaking teens in Israel who need help navigating their tumultuous adolescent years in a familiar language and culture, teamed up with Masa earlier this month for a conference titled “The Year in Israel: A Mental Health Toolkit.” Opening with a keynote address on Internet addiction from renowned psychiatrist Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski, the conference featured multiple workshops on such diverse topics as depression and anxiety, borderline personality disorder, self-harm, eating disorders and psychiatric medication.

“We see around 120 to 150 kids per year in one-on-one therapy,” Robbie Sassoon, Crossroads executive director, says.

“Anywhere between 30% to 50% come from various gap-year programs. What we’ve noticed is that there are programs that have mental health support on staff and they’re usually ahead of the game, in terms of helping kids on their programs who need support. But there are also plenty of programs – if not the majority of them – that don’t have any type of mental health professional on staff. We approached Masa last year and asked them to help us train their staff, because we’ve been seeing all of their kids. Thankfully, they were open to the idea.”

Crossroads has a presence in Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh and Modi’in, but outside Jerusalem it functions more as a youth group with social services. Its main presence is in Jerusalem’s city center, where it has a drop-in center and clinic. It also offers educational and job support. All of the services are free. Crossroads staff members even go out to the streets a few nights a week to tell teenagers about the types of assistance they offer. They meet with homeless youth as well as boys in yeshiva, all of whom desperately need either crisis help or therapeutic support.

Last June, Crossroads hosted a training program at Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies with Masa that would serve as a precursor for December’s conference.

“We basically did best practices,” Sassoon adds. “We went through a list of issues and diagnoses in terms of mental health that come up each year: signs, symptoms, tips. A big theme was, what is your role and what isn’t your role? There are thousands of kids who come each year on gap-year programs, and their guardians are these administrators. The feedback we got was that this was not enough and that they wanted more. So afterward, we got together with Masa again and decided to offer a conference with more meat; not just five minutes on cutting [self-harm] and five minutes on depression. We wanted to give them whole sessions on these topics, so that they could walk away with tools. Masa was excited to participate with us. In essence, Masa has the programs and Crossroads has the mental health know-how. It’s really a fantastic collaboration.”

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The idea for the Year in Israel conference was for it to be directed not only toward administrators, but also educators and counselors, who are often on the front lines with youth at risk on gap year programs.

Thousands of teenagers in Israel on gap year programs already have issues before they come. At that stage in life, they have more freedom than they’ve ever had from their parents. Because of that, latent issues have a way of rising to the surface. The crucial aspect of the recent Crossroads conference is the way it was structured, with a wide array of targeted workshops dealing with nearly every conceivable issue that a gap-year educator may encounter. These workshops were designed to be handson and to yield usable tools for the future.

The conference hosted representatives from more than 45 programs, both religious and academic. Sassoon is quick to acknowledge that Masa had the foresight to approach all the programs under its umbrella. Sassoon has been the executive director of Crossroads for seven years. The organization itself now has 17 years of cumulative experience. It would be safe to say that Crossroads is the expert in its field and that no one else does what it is doing. The fact that so many gap-year programs are able to benefit from its expertise will yield untold advantages for thousands more teenagers, just as Crossroads has already helped a multitude of at-risk youth.

“It started in 1999 when I noticed an issue in town, where there were a lot of English-speaking kids who were not being served by the Israeli services,” Caryn Green, founder and past director of Crossroads, recalls.

“Some were kids who were here just for the year and many were kids whose parents moved here and now lived here. They didn’t feel comfortable in the Israeli services, partly because of language and also cultural differences.

“There was a need to serve this population, so I started Crossroads to help these 13- to 21-year-olds. It went from being 60% tourists and 40% residents, to vice versa. It shifted when we started doing our work really well. We saw gangs in the streets, kids living on rooftops and in parks. That just doesn’t happen anymore. Within about five years of Crossroads opening, where there was a center that you could go to and social workers who you could speak to, it made it so the issues shifted and changed. There are a lot more normative kids who get help now; it’s not just the hard-core drug addicts.”

As Green puts it, Crossroads went rogue in 2007 and became its own non-profit, after being well-funded initially, but growing increasingly wary of too many competitive interests from other organizations. However, there was an essential lesson learned from the early years; sharing services increases the ability to be effective.

It was in this same vein, by partnering with Masa, that the recent conference was such a success.

“We are a professional clinical center that still has a warmth to it,” Green adds. “We’re a very special place. I left six years ago. My father taught me that a good leader is somebody who, when they leave, the organization continues, it doesn’t fall apart.”

By those and any standards, Green was an effective leader who created an organization that continues to engage and make a difference. She led one of the conference’s workshops on borderline personality disorder, since she has worked with many teens who suffer from it.

“One of the things we’ve found is that it’s a very difficult diagnosis and it’s mostly girls,” she says. “It’s the type of thing where they’re very fragile, but also very pushy. They push and you feel like you want to push back, but if you do, they break. I basically said that when you notice these things, this is what you do and this is what you avoid.”

If this month’s conference is any indication, Crossroads has tapped into a real need to equip program educators and counselors with a toolkit culled from years in the field, so that they can properly address the demands of their young participants.

“Crossroads is not a religious organization; we offer therapeutic support,” Sassoon says. “Our agenda is for teens who need therapeutic support to receive it, teens who are in crisis to get the help, and for teens to make safe and healthy choices. You could say that that’s the most religious thing there is. We have a hotline where we take suicide calls. We save lives.”