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9
Introduction
Professional Discourse:
Challenges in the Spheres of
Development and Practice in the
Social World
Anat Pessate-Schubert
Ashalim attaches great importance to promoting a professional
discourse as part of the overall discussion of ways to develop
avenues of learning among professionals who work with children,
youth and young adults at risk, and their families. In Issue 14 of
Et Hasadeh, we have chosen to address the connection between
work assumptions and perceptions, and developing services for
children, youth and young adults at risk.
Studies indicate that children who grow up in situations of risk
develop social marginality and difficulties in contending with,
and adjusting to, various kinds of frameworks (Davidson-Arad,
2010). They are exposed to physical, emotional, behavioral and
cognitive difficulties that are expressed in a host of symptoms:
aggression, low frustration threshold, lack of control, low verbal
ability, difficulties in thinking and learning, problems of identity,
a tendency toward risky behaviors, etc. (Ben-Rabi et al., 2008;
Dvir, Wiener and Kupermintz, 2010). Since a close connection
exists between a person’s well-being and his cultural, economic,
behavioral and emotional environment, the undermining of one
of these environments also causes harm to the person’s emotional
system, and influences the rest of the spheres of life (Lander and
Slonim-Nevo, 2010). It is well known that work perceptions like these
affect both the development process and the ways for implementing
the various intervention practices.