"Pleasant Recovery":
Improving Children's Experience During Hospitalization 



Prime Minister joins Mandel Fellow in her endeavor to provide children with a pleasant recovery (Courtesy of GPO)

It’s not every day that the Prime Minister of Israel is photographed at Hadassah Hospital.  Nor is it common for him to be seen in consultation with a Mandel School for Educational Leadership (MSEL) Fellow.  What is the Premier’s connection to our Fellow, Granit  Almog-Bareket?

PM Olmert, who has a long-standing relationship with Mandel Leadership Institute (MLI), took interest in Fellow Granit Almog-Bareket and her social endeavor, ‘Pleasant Recovery’, stating that it is a "blessed initiative", one of the many worthy MLI activities he has known over the years.

It isn’t easy to be a child in hospital. Not only do you have to cope with your illness and sometimes painful medical intervention; you’re also forced to change your life routine and to be somewhat cut off from your friends, school and hobbies.

Hospitals usually have a formal education system for child inpatients, but due to the special circumstances of hospital life, these classes are not enough. Sick children have special needs, including the need for activities in the afternoons and during school vacations. Most importantly, sick children need warmth, support, and affection irrespective of the support they receive from their families. All these things have to surround the children throughout their hospitalization; they have to be available at almost every moment the children spend in the hospital.

Taking the rights of sick children seriously
‘Pleasant Recovery’ is a social initiative founded by Granit Almog-Bareket, a fellow of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership. Her idea is to help enable sick children to exercise their rights in the broadest way possible, so as to meet a whole range of their needs: amongst them educational enrichment, emotional sustenance, social support from their peer group in the hospital and schooling outside ordinary school hours. First and foremost, sick children have the right to be loved, like any child, and to be enveloped in care and concern.

Activities organized by ‘Pleasant Recovery’, Granit and the pediatrics ward include getting together to watch a movie, listening to a story, seeing a play, engaging in arts and crafts, taking part in musical activities, using computers, baking, playing with toys and games, and celebrating birthdays and holidays. The children also enjoy activities outside the hospital in coordination with the medical staff; treats such as theatre visits, trips to the zoo, and basketball/soccer games. The children benefit from music and art therapy, educational support through private tutoring, help staying in touch with friends, borrowing books and personal computers, and help in keeping a diary documenting how they cope with their illness.

Through ‘Pleasant Recovery’, Granit has organized an entire system of volunteers and assured that the hospital allocates time and space for incorporating their activities into the department’s daily schedule.

“It’s easy to embrace someone who is offering you help,” says Granit, “but it is much harder to conduct a dialogue with that person on equal terms. That’s just one of the challenges facing ‘Pleasant Recovery’”.
“An initiative was born here … to connect people who care. People who are willing to do something for sick children—not in the financial sense, but in the sense of giving. People who are willing to give of themselves, to make kids active, and to help out,” Granit said in a radio interview about the initiative.

People might think that orchestrating such an initiative takes a full time job... but for Granit, 'Pleasant Recovery'  is another project amongst her many other activities. As part of her final project at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership, she is founding an organization by the name of “From Vision to Every Day.” Through this initiative she is working on developing tools to promote leadership dialogue, in part by reflecting the organizational values and vision as manifested in the organizational culture.

Only the begining
This project draws the attention of people, and many call to express their desire to join and assist. During the radio broadcast that was dedicated to the 'Pleasant Recovery' initiative, Professor Dan Engelhard, Head of the Pediatrics ward at Hadassah Hospital, expressed his appreciation, and stated that: "Radio Jerusalem, Granit Almog-Bareket and The Mandel Leadership Institute deserve a big thank you!"

Now that 'Pleasant Recovery' is up and running, Granit is devoted to recruiting the community to this endeavor and to expanding this local initiative to other hospitals around Jerusalem and Israel. “As a fellow at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership of the Mandel Leadership Institute,” she states, “I had the time, the resources and the ability to move this important initiative forward."