Is institutional care really the same as home, love, family?

Haya floating unaided in the pool 

I just discovered

Here are a couple of very recent Aleh posts I have just come across:

“This village [Aleh Negev - the Ofakim branch] was established with the express purpose of breaking the mold. The world needed a change—a place that would actually serve the community while also serving as a model of diversity and acceptance,” says Maj. Gen. (Res.) Doron Almog of the Israel Defense Forces and the chairman of ALEH Negev-Nahalat Eran." ["Plans for expanded village at ALEH in works, plus neuro-orthopedic hospital", JNS/Eli Klein, August 11, 2020]

And the following day:

"This is why we work so hard to protect and empower our ALEH residents with severe disabilities. This picture conveys so much more than a thousand words... but we'll highlight a few: Home. Love. Family". [Aleh on its Facebook page]

I need some help here. Can someone please explain to me how taking a child away from his home and family to live in a large institution connotes "Home, Love, Family"?

How does the practice of institutionalizing children serve "as a model of diversity and acceptance"?

Of course, I doubt anybody could ever convince me of that.

But one claim made above is accurate: Aleh truly does "break the mold" to paraphrase its PR team. "The mold" being life with a family. "The mold" being life within the community. "The mold" being services provided to people with disabilities in their home or in adoptive/foster homes. "The mold" being the path of the developed world. 

Yes, Aleh, does break that magnificent mold. And what a sad fact that is.

The State of Israel stands alone as it not only promotes, supports and finances these large institutions but pays visit after visit - physically - to those very buildings. Various government ministers have trekked over to Aleh branches, providing much publicized photo ops and laudatory quotes about the institutionalization of Israel's children and youth who have disabilities.

Meanwhile, we who love our children and want them with us are struggling. We are particularly challenged now, during the Covid era, when my daughter Haya's few pleasures have been curtailed.

Fortunately, though, this week we succeeded in returning her to that favorite activity - hydrotherapy. We found a small, local pool -  6 x 10 meters - which can be rented by the hour. 

After five months on dry land, I feared that she would have forgotten how to float on her back independently. That, of course, was her one and only skill.

We were thrilled to see that she remembered it well, relaxed as she used to, even stopped seizing - as you can see in the photo above.

I'm still awaiting word from the Ministry of Welfare which is concealing statistics re the impact of Covid-19 on residents of the closed institutions. It has yet to release details of where the ill and deceased residents were living despite my request for that information under the Freedom of Information Law 3 weeks ago!

They maintain that they are obligated to respond within one month.