Irving Harris Early Development Education Program (IHEDEP)
The success of the IHEDEP program of the Department of Neonatology of the
Shaare Zedek Medical Center these past four years, as detailed in the attached report,
confirms the need to expand and extend the training of professionals who are involved
in the care of high risk newborn infants in techniques of both assessment and
intervention. In addition, the practical experience of the program, in particular, the
results of systematic study of Kangaroo Care of premature infants, has emphasized
the need to further develop structured programs that will assist families in creating
and sustaining the proper parenting style so needed for these infants, To that end we
request support for an additional three years to focus on a twofold goal:
1. Expansion of the training program utilizing our curriculum to
increasing numbers of medical, nursing, psychology and allied
health professional. The setting for these seminars/lectures and
demonstration will be the Department of Neonatology and its
nurseries (including the newborn intensive care unit-NICU) and
its follow up clinic facilities. In particular the targeted
professionals will be nurses and developmental psychologists
who will be working in such setting. Both the Departments of
Psychology of the Hebrew University and Bar Ilan University
will utilize the resources of this Shaare Zedek Harris program
as will Nursing School of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
Additionally, students from the new medical school program of
the Columbia University (NY)- Ben Gurion University (Beer
Sheva) School of International Health who will be rotating on a
regular basis to the SZMC Neonatology program will be
exposed to these developmental concepts and approaches. The
recent seminar on the subject of the follow up of high risk
premature infants that was conducted by Dr Eidelman for the
newly established Israel Association of Infant Mental Health (
affiliate of the World Association of Infant Mental Health
WAIHM)
2. The second focus of the program will on the families
themselves, i.e. the training and supervision of the mothers and
fathers to provide the critically needed stimulation, interaction
and nurturing of the high risk newborn. Of interest is the
3. fact that the Israel Academy of Science has awarded Drs
Eidelman and Feldman a 4-year grant of $180,000 to study the
special needs of one subset of such high-risk infants - multiple
birth infants (particularly triplets). This grant no doubt is an
outgrowth of the work already done with the support of the
Harris foundation
and is testimony to the success of
providing initial start up funding for our programs.