As the primary funder for Prizmah’s Mental Health Summit this coming May, the Ruderman Family Foundation has a long history of supporting Jewish day schools. Working with Prizmah in the area of mental health for day schools has brought the foundation “full circle,” according to Sharon Shapiro, a trustee of the Foundation.
“When my grandmother died, my father set up a scholarship fund at Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) for Orthodox Jewish day schools,” said Shapiro. It was this initial philanthropic move rooted in the values of giving back and supporting the Jewish community that led the family to create what became the Ruderman Family Foundation. “Our work started in Jewish day schools, and as we have broadened our focus in various ways, it feels very good to connect some of our recent priorities and passions, such as mental health, directly back to day schools where we began,” said Shapiro.
In 2004, the Ruderman Family Foundation was one of the founders of Greater Boston’s Peerless Excellence initiative which committed $45 million into the day schools. “It was through the Peerless Excellence work that we really deepened our partnership with CJP and created a strategy for excellence and inclusion within the Jewish day schools,” said Shapiro.
This led to the creation of Gateways: Access to Jewish Education in 2006, seeking to make inclusion in Jewish education a top priority for the Boston Jewish community. “Our strategy was based on a life cycle experience, a long-term commitment in order to create long-term impact across schools, synagogues, camps, and preschools,” said Shapiro.
“Our first conversations about mental health in the Jewish community emerged from our work with CJP and the Ruderman Synagogue Inclusion Project initiative,” said Shapiro. “In addition, we saw through our work with Gateways that so many students in Jewish day schools struggle with mental illness. There was a need to implement systematic solutions.”
Shapiro’s passion for mental health emerged as she realized how difficult it was for those in need to access mental health support and resources in Jewish education. “At the time, people did not fully realize that mental health issues could happen to anyone,” Shapiro said. “In the Jewish community, people really were not sharing, and families felt isolated because of the stigma around mental health and the low levels of awareness.”
When the Ruderman Family Foundation started working in mental health over six years ago, it was hard to find opportunities within the Jewish community, and they stepped outside the Jewish world for the first time in order to learn and expand their knowledge. “We always kept the Jewish schools and organizations as part of our commitment and expansion plan,” said Shapiro.
The Foundation developed a strategic partnership with the Brookline Center for Community Mental Health and funded BRYT (Bridge to Resilient Youth and Transition), which supports high school students taking leaves of absence to address mental health issues. BRYT has grown dramatically to now serve 250 schools, and it has become a central source of programming for the Massachusetts education system and has even expanded to eight additional states. This partnership represents one of key approaches to addressing mental health needs across high schools.
The Ruderman Family Foundation believes in partnerships through meaningful investments-no one can do it alone. “Working together allows us to develop relationships with the organizations and the people leading them so by the time the partnership is ready for implementation, the work is better stream-lined and the partnership is more successful.”
“We have been very fortunate to have great partners,” said Shapiro. “It is important to us to develop initiatives and pilots that can be scaled, replicated, and enhanced across communities.”
As the foundation’s work in mental health deepened, Shapiro discovered connections back to the Jewish community. “With Covid-19 and the accompanying rapid expansion in mental health needs, we partnered with Gateways to help them create a system for Jewish day schools that follows the BRYT model.” There are now pilots in three Boston-area schools based on BRYT.
“Working now with Prizmah to support social and emotional mental health in our schools is a great opportunity to elevate the importance of mental health within these institutions,” said Shapiro. “It is so hard for teachers and principals to address this complex reality; there is so much need and not enough time. We decided to partner with Prizmah in order to address the teachers, school principals, and other professionals so that they can help themselves and their students.”
“Prizmah’s track record in changing realities for Jewish day schools and the incredible dedication of their team give us a great sense of partnership and shared investment in the outcome,” said Shapiro.
Shapiro offered an observation on what it means for a funder to approach a topic that they care so much about. “Figuring out what your passion is takes time, it is a long road of learning,” she said.
“For me, it is wonderful to find myself involved in a topic that is so important to me and my family and to keep investing in the Jewish community, exactly where we started.”