Parents’ letter praises disability care

Michelle and Yitzchak Feiglin, whose son attends our respite care house for children with a disability, wrote the following letter to the Australian Jewish News praising the service and staff.

Yom Kippur is a time when many of us chose to spend the day in shul involved in fasting and prayer. Most shuls now provide childcare and children’s programs, enabling parents to be in shul for at least part of the day. Yom Kippur can be a challenging time however for families caring for a child with a disability. That child may be too old or unable to be included in shul programs and finding suitable carers is often difficult.

For the last few years, Jewish Care has especially opened its respite house, Fink House, to address this need. Children are able to sleep there on Kol Nidrei night and stay over the next day. The dedicated staff has found creative and stimulating ways of entertaining the children without involving any chilul Shabbat (desecration of the Sabbath). At our request, a staff member walked our son home at 5pm so that he could come with us to Ne’ilah. He arrived home relaxed and happy and behaved beautifully at shul.

Thank you to all the wonderful administration and staff at Fink House for making this possible.