Paul Calvert talks with Dov Hirth from Aleh about the incredible work they are doing in Israel to help children and their families.

Dov: Basically the way it works is we have a special education school. It is run according to the standards of the Israeli Ministry of Education and Special Education but it is obviously on a very different level. The children are not put into classrooms based on age or gender; they are put into classrooms based on ability. Within each classroom the teacher has the incredible job of trying to give these kids the best opportunities for them to learn throughout the day.

In a typical classroom you will have 5 to 7 children; a teacher; a caregiver; an assistant and a volunteer or a national service girl. A national service girl is a girl who instead of going to the army, which is required here in Israel, volunteers their time in various organisations and institutions. They can volunteer in the Israel museum, at Aleh, at the Knesset. There are many places where they can do this. We are very fortunate to have a number of national service girls who come to the Aleh centres and help us tremendously. Back to what I was saying, in general you will have anywhere between 4 to 5 adults caring for 5 to 7 children in a classroom.

Paul: Is it like one big family when they're all together in the classroom?

Dov: 100%. The organisation itself is one big family. One of the main things I want to stress is that Aleh is not a replacement for the parents. We are there to help the parents with their children. These kids can't live at home, not because the parents don't want them to live at home, but because of the severity of their disabilities and medical complications. It's physically not possible for them to live at home. For example, for one of our residents in a typical apartment here in Israel where you have 5 rooms, they would have to reserve one full room just for his or her needs. And it would mean that somebody always has to be home. It hampers the ability of the family to continue.

A lot of the residents with us in Aleh have very healthy siblings and they are all part of the global Aleh family. We have support groups for the parents, for the siblings, for the grandparents. Anything and everything we do at the organisation the parents are made aware of. They have to sign off on any sort of changes - a change of medication, a change in a therapy. The parents are extremely involved on a day-to-day basis. If there is an accomplishment, if there is a cute photo that was captured, it's sent to the parents. We have some parents that visit every single day; we have some that visit once a month; we have some that visit every three months. But in general the participation of the family is very, very strong and solid.

Paul: Are families often desperate for support?

Dov: Yes and no. It's very difficult to take your child out of your home and put him into a facility that's not your house. It's a tremendous difficulty for the parents. God help all of us that we should not be in that situation. But when the parents are faced with that situation they really have to do a lot of soul searching and a lot of thinking and decide what is best for the child. One of the main things that we do is to give tremendous amounts of support to the parents - not financial support, because the child is at Aleh so they don't need extra financial support. But we give emotional support, love and connection.

Just the other day I was at the Aleh Jerusalem centre and I was passing by the office of one of our social workers. So I popped my head in to say hi, how're doing, how's everything. She said I just hung up the phone with one of the families; their child passed on. I just want to tell you that three times a year, before the main holidays Rosh Hashanah, Passover and Sukkoth she calls all these families and she tells them that their child is not forgotten, even though they passed on because of their disabilities and medical conditions, he's still a part of the Aleh family. We are still a major part of their life and it brings them a lot of comfort.

Paul: Does disability affect the whole family? Because the focus is on that disabled child, do some of the other children get left out in some ways?

Dov: Yes. It's often the case when you have a child who requires a lot more attention and a lot more time; the other children "suffer." It's difficult for them and that's another consideration for the family.

Paul: You've already said you have volunteers. Do you rely heavily on volunteers?

Dov: Our appreciation and gratitude towards the volunteers is above and beyond anything our words could possibly convey, we have volunteers from all walks of life. We have an international volunteer program, which you can check out on our website, www.aleh.org. We have people from all over the world, from China, Russia, New York City. They come here for 3, 5 months or a year, we house them and provide them with pocket money and they dedicate the time that they're here to these children. We also have local volunteers. These are seminary students or students that are in 11th, 12th grade. They help with the kids, not in the sense of therapy but in the sense of bringing joy and happiness.

There's a beautiful group of young ladies who come every night to the Aleh Jerusalem centre, they go from bed to bed and they sit and say bedtime prayers with the children - in Hebrew it's called the Shema. They sing to them and help them calm down so they can go to sleep. Then they go home. That's their volunteering. They come every single night of the year, they go from room to room and it's really beautiful. We have volunteers who come from high tech companies. They want to see how they can help, what they can do. We've had some really innovative ideas come from some of these individuals. These guys come and they help us in a lot of ways. In an average week, throughout the organisation, the four centres, we have thousands of volunteers helping us to help the kids.

Paul: Do you provide therapy for the kids and is that important for them?