 |
JFS in Bridgeport opens Wellness Center
By Stacey Dresner
July 15, 2005 - BRIDGEPORT -- Jewish Family Service of Bridgeport has always offered what it calls "Jewish life education programs" n support groups for divorced and single parents, widows and widowers, discussion groups for teens, and groups for the children of aging parents, to name a few.
Now JFS has developed a new program called its Wellness Center, which adds a Jewish spiritual component to some of the programming they have always offered.
"We are always experimenting with ways of meeting the needs of the community and finding interesting things to get people out around various issues and topics," said Barbara Paris, vice president of JFS. "What has been happening over the years is that we have been adding into our whole repertoire the whole issue of what makes us Jewish, what is the Jewish component of the issue, and incorporating Judaism into our groups."
Rabbi Dana Bogatz is director of the JFS' Wellness Center. For the past two years she has offered chaplain service through the JFS, visiting local hospitals to provide pastoral care. She is now receiving chaplaincy training toward her CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at Bridgeport Hospital.
"While I bring spirituality to the hospital during chaplaincy visits, this is bringing ‘wellness' into a Jewish agency, so it is turning the coin the other way," explained Bogatz, who is also rabbi at Congregation Sinai in West Haven. "We are concerned with the overall wellness of every Jewish family in the Bridgeport area."
Programs offered through the Wellness Center, under the heading "LaBreoot" or "To your health," are two hour sessions that include discussion about the issue at hand, as well as some Jewish music like nigguns, some meditation n"an opportunity for people to be thoughtful about the topic," Bogatz said, and sometimes a writing exercise for participants who are better at expressing themselves that way. Jewish psalms and texts are incorporated "to gain Jewish flavor," Bogatz said.
For example, a Wellness Center program held around Passover included text from the Haggadah and guided visualization about "what the chametz is in all our lives, what enslaves us," Paris recalled.
Another program for survivors of cancer also included featured Jewish stories, prayers and psalms aimed at bringing "hope and solace" to the participants.
JFS is marketing the Wellness Center through local synagogues and is hoping to engage the rabbis of local synagogues to participate in programming that they find of interest.
Paris said that besides the move to add Jewish spirituality to the mix of programs, interest in the whole holistic movement also spurred the formation of the Wellness Center.
"There is so much more of a movement, whether it is holistic medicine and things like yoga," she said. "Our lives are crazier and busier and people are looking to bring more balance into their lives. You can't be mentally, emotionally and physically well with out balance."
|
