Kiryat Shmona Trauma Center Opens New Facility

Earlier this week, after operating out of temporary spaces throughout Kiryat Shmona, the Community Stress Prevention Center (CSPC) in Kiryat Shmona opened the doors of a new, permanent training and treatment facility.

For more than 30 years, the CSPC has worked on local, national, and international levels to help individuals and communities cope with the trauma that follows crises and disasters.

“Despite the respect and achievements we have accomplished, we were always guests in someone else’s place,” said CSPC founder and director Mooli Lahad, an internationally recognized expert in trauma care. “The dream to have a building with facilities to treat children and adults, a library to run seminars and conduct research, space to accommodate training for scholars and practitioners from Israel and abroad has finally come true. This is due first and foremost to the friendship and support of UJA-Federation of New York.”

To date, the CSPC has trained thousands of professionals both in Israel and abroad in various techniques that develop individual, family, and community skills for coping with emergencies. The team at the CSPC has established themselves as leaders in trauma care not only in Israel, where they have been involved in nearly all security events from the time of their founding through today, but also worldwide. The CSPC has treated innumerable individuals and families across the globe, including those in Turkey after the 1999 earthquake; New York after the events of 9/11; Beslan, Russia, following the terrible school massacre of 2004; the Far East following the tsunami of 2004; Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina in 2005; and Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake. Matan Vilnai, the Israeli minister for home-front defense, was on hand to open the new building.