Meet Lynn Rubenstein, JDN Assistant Program Manager  

Lynn Rubenstein recently joined Jewish Family Service as the assistant program manager for the Jewish Disabilities Network (JDN). Learn more about Lynn as she shares a little bit about herself...

My husband, daughter, and I moved to the Denver metro area from Massachusetts about a year ago, when my husband accepted the position of rabbi/chaplain at Shalom Cares. We have been settling in and learning our way around the Denver area-geographically and networking to find a place to put our energies.  

I feel very excited to have found the JDN position that suits my interests and experience. During my career, I have worked with people of all ages in many different capacities, including teaching Hebrew and Jewish education, developing Jewish holiday programs for families, and providing activities for senior residents in nursing homes or private care settings. One of my strengths is creating methods to help people express their artistic talent as they explore both fine motor and gross motor activities. I especially enjoy the moment of discovery as someone realizes that they can do something they didn't know they could do before they were exposed to the challenge.

My own personal family experience has given me a tremendous amount of patience and creativity to help others learn the skills they need to function in life. I have learned that good self esteem is the key to opening the door to all achievements in life. I try to teach others the importance of finding value in each individual they interact with, in order to facilitate positive growth in that person.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to work for an agency that supports the value of positive self esteem in the individual and I will dedicate my time to be a partner in this effort.

Inclusion Success Story
From the Inclusion Committee of the Jewish Disabilities Network 

Striving to include people of all abilities in Jewish communal life  

, we will showcase an organization that is exemplifying the meaning of "inclusion" in our community. Thank you to Temple Sinai for submitting the following article.

Several years ago, the results of Allied Jewish Federation's 2007 Metro Denver/Boulder Jewish Community Study confirmed empirically what most of professional Jewish communal workers already knew anecdotally: families with children that have extra needs are underserved by our Jewish institutions. Our shared heritage is replete with teachings about caring for all members of the community. The Torah reminds us 36 times to care for the stranger in our midst because we were strangers in Egypt and our sacred texts teach that "all Israel is responsible for one another." Yet the reality beneath the teaching is that a segment of our community does not feel well-served by our institutions.

Beginning in the spring of 2010, Temple Sinai Religious School acted upon prior conversations we had already been having about support for extra-needs students by hiring a part-time consultant who was able to work with a handful of students on a very sporadic basis. We found that even the limited level of service we were then able to provide made a big difference-both for the teachers, who learned new behavior management and teaching strategies, and most importantly for the students, whom we were able to help have a more meaningful experience at religious school.