Ok so its me , and be patient because this is my first real blog.

And i was going to start by talking about the nuances of the shelter - BUT

Today one of the soldiers killed in Action was related to a client of ours .... so this has to be it.

And im not a prolific writer ( used to be had many articles printed ) but a combination of my age , my exhaustion and too many years in Israel has reduced me to simple english.

So today it was my turn to present at our bi weekly staff meeting of social workers.

But ten minutes before the meeting started i got a call telling me that this young 20 something year old man had been killed in Gaza- and so all original plans cancelled and i decided to take the time at the meeting to do what inevitably was bound to happen sooner or later.

To talk about death of the military, either family or work related to the staff - focusing on resilience, how we cope, what we need and in general opening the stage up for a healthy emotional discussion.

I knew that sitting at the table would be male sw's who had done miluim in Gaza and seen many disturbing things, family members of sw's currently in Gaza and one of our staff whose young cousin had been killed whilst fighting.

And the sw of the young female client whose family member had just been killed.

My general motto is "do no damage" so we took it slowly and i observed for non verbal responses, as well as verbal ones.

Good to know that most of the people have been working for us for at least 5 years- we know them well.

The sw for the client was visibly shaken and not really knowing what to do. She is our newest member of staff. I wanted to make sure she got as much support as she needed to deal with the client. She is an obviously haredi Chassidic woman who has no internet and doesnt see the news.

So she had not seen or been to a military burial or know how the military responds to this. It was important to give her all the knowledge she needed such as how the army accompanies the grieving family members and how deeply they are involved with them.

The sw who lost her cousin provided this information and it was clearly cathartic for her to tell her as it is. I also was not aware of the intense "livui "support and accompaniment the army gives to the families and all the various organizations that come into the picture to support them. It truly is amazing.

However we are dealing with a young woman who was sexually abused by a family member - who does not have the greatest of relationships with the family, and we really dont know how this is handled.

of course death doesn't discriminate between "normal "and dysfunctional families and we have one in this case.

There are also addiction issues and our client is clean but may sit shiva in a drug filled environment - BIG red light.

We talked about the concept of the client needing to feel safe and supported - knowing that shiva for these families is often held in big erected tents near the home - and all and sundry come to visit.

We talked about the various safety options within the mental health framework and how we could access them quickly if needed.

Whilst feeling extremely grateful that there are so many options over here which are free and paid for by the health funds.

We talked about how the dynamics of grief play out very differently for every person- both time wise and in the way they present. And especially for someone who has already a heavy history of PTSD.

We knew we needed to coordinate with various organizations and bodies including the army - a world uno itself.

But most of all we talked about timing - one day at a time, one hour at a time and sometimes one breath at a time.

All in all it was ( i think ) a good meeting, a cathartic one, a supportive one and a necessary one.

May the precious soul of this young man have an aliya of the highest heights and may we all be zoche to only hear good news,- but to be prepared- as we have learnt to be for the opposite.