The Holistics model is an ORT network initiative in collaboration with the Ministry of Education’s northern district, and the towns of Beit Shean, Maalot-Tarshiha, Migdal Haemek, and Hatzor Haglilit. These bodies all share the municipal education responsibility and run the program in the elementary and secondary ORT schools. The purpose of the model is to build an educational, pedagogical and organizational continuum combined with monitoring and assessment to ensure the students’ mental wellbeing, and the optimal functioning and improved attainment of the towns’ vision and goals for education. The proposed model is holistic, i.e., it caters to the person as a whole – their physical, mental, and spiritual sides – who is influenced by both physical and social environmental factors and hereditary ones.
In addition to the educational-pedagogical review and intervention, which involves scholastic achievements, dropout, motivation, the ability to continue studying and more, the model also addresses optimum mental wellbeing, which is related to the values of health, optimism, personal satisfaction, hope and happiness.
The individual process includes mapping each and every student’s condition from a variety of aspects that together bring them to an optimal state: strengths and talents, family strengths, leisure time activities, sleep, nutrition, physical activity, social situation, volunteering, etc. A student who is in a state of ‘mental wellbeing’ can dramatically improve their scholastic achievements.