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Dec. 1, 2006

Catering to a whole community

JFSA staff help clients with all manner of social problems – but it can be a tough ride.
VERONIKA STEWART

The front line of the Jewish Family Services Agency is its reception desk, where Rachael Tait fields anywhere from 150 to 300 calls a day. She said there are certain qualities that a receptionist at the JFSA must possess.

"I get a call that throws me once in a while," said Tait. "You need to have a thick skin. You need a heaping dose of empathy, but you also need to be able to be tough and put your foot down."

Although Tait said she doesn't have to put her foot down too often and never twice with the same person, there are some "problem clients."

"We have a lot of clients that have mental health issues and they're usually the ones that are the difficult clients and the big complainers. Sometimes they have a valid point, sometimes they're just grasping at things," Tait explained. "Sometimes it's that something's made them angry that day and so they phone us to funnel it somewhere."

The agency offers aid to the whole Jewish community in many forms, including counselling, food, financial assistance and employment counselling.

Tait said that many non-Jewish people will also call the JFSA asking for money and food, services the agency only provides to people of Jewish descent.

"Some calls have nothing to do with us, quite frankly," she said. "They're people who are not Jewish but they've exhausted every other avenue and they've heard from a friend that they can come in and get money from us. I always ask if they're Jewish, but they have no proof. I tell them they have to go to a rabbi and be confirmed. Usually that will throw them and, if they truly are Jewish, they will do it, but the majority of people have just heard from a friend of a friend who came here and got food or got money."

Some of the services, like counselling, are available for non-Jewish people as well, but to make sure people are directed properly, Tait said she checks with callers first.

"I try to field the calls to take the heat off the other counsellors because they get so many calls a day and the last thing that they need to do is try to figure out whether someone is Jewish or not before they provide services," she said.

Although frustrating at times, Tait said it's part of the job.

"You can't take it personally," she said. "You have to understand that people are mentally ill, or they're dealing in crisis situations and people deal with things like that differently. There isn't a textbook way that somebody will deal with stress or anxiety or crisis."

There is also no textbook definition of the clientele of the JFSA. There is no "average" client that goes there. The agency provides for all types, including seniors, the mentally ill, immigrants, children and abused women.

One of three part-time seniors' counsellors is Susan Hilton. In a corner office down the maze of hallways in the JFSA office, she sits at her desk making calls trying to set up a once-a-month bingo night for the senior clients of the JFSA. Finding volunteers can be difficult because they must speak both Russian and English.

Hilton said the majority of seniors that come to the JFSA for aid are on the margins of the Jewish community.

"The ones we see are the isolated ones with no family here, with health or money issues," said Hilton says. "If they're doing fine, we don't see them.

"The majority are low-income, isolated, frail, lonely, can't manage, need that little help to keep them going," Hilton continued. "Our job is to keep them going where they live as long as possible before they go to a facility."

Hilton said that before she began working at the JFSA she never would have expected the spectrum of issues that arise.

"Typically, you don't think of Jews being down and out, drug addicts or alcoholics, but it does happen," Hilton explained. She cited a case where a senior client was addicted to crack cocaine as being one of the most shocking she's experienced.

She said there are varying levels of help given to her senior clients.

"I know we see about 500 in a year, but some we'll see once a year and others we talk to every two days."

Because often the services provided by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority can be insufficient, the JFSA will provide supplementary assistance to its seniors. As well as providing caretakers to cook and clean for their clients, senior and non-senior clients are also assisted with the basic necessities. This includes anything from a food voucher to a ride to a doctor's appointment to a cheque to last them to the end of the month.

Hilton said she also tries to visit the homes of her clients to get a feel for the kind of assistance they need.

"I try to do a check whenever I meet somebody new. I usually do a home visit because it tells the whole story," said Hilton.

She said the agency is an important institution in the community. "There are so many people that, if it wasn't for us, they'd be in a rubby-dub hotel on the Downtown Eastside."

Eldad Goldfarb, the director of counselling and special needs, said the counselling department caters to children, those with personality disorders, people going through a separation, the bereaved and Holocaust survivors. They are also working on a program for those with eating disorders.

Goldfarb said that because the JFSA charges for counselling services, they allow non-Jewish clients. He says how much a client pays is based on income.

"People pay according to their expenses and revenues and according to the size of their families," he said. Many clients do not have to pay anything at all.

Because of the cost of counseling, Goldfarb said the more mentally ill people are eligible to get free medical services from the government and therefore don't usually come to the JFSA for counselling.

For those whose mental health issues fall beyond the scope of the JFSA's counselling department, Goldfarb said they refer them to more appropriate medical treatment.

JFSA executive director Joseph Kahn-Tietz said the mandate of the JFSA is ultimately to care for everyone in the community and to make sure no one gets left behind. He said a measure of the agency's success over the past seven years that he's been director has been a significant increase in their capacity to help people. This increase has been shown by the increase in the agency's budget, from under $1 million when he began, to their current budget of $2.5 million.

"As our community grows, we have a responsibility to care for the people who are new to the community and who live on the margins of society," Kahn-Tietz said.

Veronika Stewart is a Vancouver freelance writer.

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