Teens team with special needs kids for synagogue services

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Lindsey Black, 16, and Stephen Shulman, eight, sat in a circle of students, teachers, and assistants, holding their copy of a brightly colored homemade prayer book. As they recited prayers on a recent Sunday morning at Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy, Shulman followed along, and as he reached to squeeze her arm, she held his hand, something she just learned to do.

“You have to interpret what he’s doing,” she explained.

Lindsey attends Central Hebrew High School; Stephen is a student at Yaldeinu, a program of the Jewish Education Association of MetroWest for special needs children ages three to 13. The two West Caldwell residents are becoming “buddies” under a project meant to brings teens together with special needs kids for experiences that will benefit them both.

The project, called the Synagogue Buddy Program, was inspired by Lori Solomon, a parent of a Yaldeinu student and cochair of the special education committee at the JEA. Solomon conceived of a project that would enable families with special needs children to go to synagogue together.

“For kids with special needs, going to synagogue is not so simple,” she said. “They cannot sit through the service; they cannot go to a service not appropriate for them. If there’s no buddy for the child, one parent has to stay home with the special needs child.”

Her synagogue, Congregation Agudath Israel of West Essex, already had a program in place pairing teens and special needs kids. The teens “pal around and help the kids through the process.” She wanted to expand the program. “We need to develop a group of teens throughout the community who understand what it’s like to be with kids with special needs….The most important thing is that the special needs child gets to participate with the rest of the family going to shul.”

Solomon came up with the idea at a JEA special education committee brainstorming meeting.

“I always wanted to work with Central Hebrew High on a project like this,” said Wendy Dratler, director of special education at the JEA. “But previous [Central Hebrew High] directors felt nothing should take time away from students’ [classroom] learning.”

Two years ago, Sue Pearlman took the helm of Central Hebrew High. “In-class learning is just as important as getting experience outside,” she said.

Pearlman embraced the idea when Dratler presented it. They agreed that such a program would have to be highly structured and provide context for the teens before they paired up with their Yaldeinu buddies. The pairs would also need plenty of supervised classroom interaction before heading off to synagogue together.

The Synagogue Buddy Program adds a seminar component. “The high school students need the educational backdrop to work with the kids. They are better able to bond as a result of this kind of preparation,” explained Linda Ariel, a social worker and behaviorist who conceived and coordinated the seminars together with Pearlman and Dratler.

In March, seven students embarked on a six-week seminar. Each session provided information on a different topic related to special needs children, including speech, behavior, and language issues and how they impact on kids’ ability to understand and express themselves; sensory and motor issues, and what it means when a child, for example, tries to squeeze your arm. “We want them to move away from the context of their interaction with peers and become more attuned and sensitive to these children,” said Ariel, standing outside a classroom on a recent Sunday morning. As a child inside a classroom laughed, Ariel explained, “He isn’t laughing because he thinks something is funny. It’s the way he expresses his interaction with the material.”

After three of these sessions, teens shadowed Yaldeinu kids, and were then paired up with them. While 15-year-old Johanna Seiden enjoys working with the kids now, she wasn’t so confident at the outset. “At first, it was scary. I didn’t know what to do. But we learned a lot in class.”

For Allegra Stout, 15, of Montville, who has siblings with special needs, the classroom portion didn’t offer much that was new. But one session caught her attention: siblings of children with special needs. “It was interesting to see that what I have experienced is something clinicians have catalogued and understand so well.”

In their classes, Yaldeinu students learn prayers. So far, only a few of the pairs have gone to synagogue together. Among these is teenager Joshua Daniels, who accompanied his buddy Julian Reiss to Congregation B’nai Israel in Millburn. Julian, 8, is autistic.

According to Julian’s mother, Cornelia Peckman, Josh “was so well-trained, and had a real comfort level going in and meeting Julian. This can be frightening; it can be off-putting, even for an adult. But Josh understood what to do and actively engaged Julian. He tried to involve him in the service and allowed him to participate. He took up the ball right away and allowed Julian to have a wonderful experience.”

The project will continue in the fall. In the future, however, according to Pearlman, students will have to sign a contract committing them to attend consistently, which has been a challenge this semester.

Solomon is pleased so far, but she wants more. “Is it working? It’s working great. But I want to see every shul doing this. No parents should have to sit at home with their kids on Shabbos.”

Johanna Ginsberg can be reached at jginsberg@njjewishnews.com.