Israeli Mental Health Clinicians Turn to TAG Center in First-Ever International Training

By Geoffrey Melada | September 25, 2025

Seeking a targeted intervention for grieving children in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attack on Southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, five Israeli mental health clinicians traveled to Houston in September for a two-day training session in Multidimensional Grief Therapy (MGT).  

MGT’s lead developer is Dr. Julie Kaplow, a national expert in childhood trauma and bereavement, and the executive director of the Trauma and Grief (TAG) Center at The Hackett Center for Mental Health. It was Kaplow’s first opportunity to train mental health professionals from another country. 

Dr. Julie Kaplow, executive director of the TAG Center

As trauma clinicians experienced in treating post-traumatic stress symptoms, the Israelis said they found themselves unprepared to respond to the tidal wave of grief that washed over their country after Oct. 7, especially among children. 

“We know so much about trauma in Israel, but so little about grieving and traumatic loss,” said Dr. Yaara Sadeh, a faculty member at the University of Haifa School of Social Work, who attended the training, which was held at the United Way of Greater Houston. 

“A lot of clinicians in general are not equipped in grief. That is what makes MGT so appealing,” explained Priscilla Mendez, director of cross-cultural programs at the TAG Center, who helped to conduct the training alongside Kaplow and other members of the TAG Center team, including Marisa Nowitz, Oscar Widales-Benitez, Stacey Brittain, and Lauren Rubenstein. 

An assessment-based intervention, MGT is grounded in the latest research on how children cope with loss, including traumatic loss, and what adults can do to support them. “Our goal is not to rid children of their grief, but to provide them with the coping skills needed to better handle their grief reactions over time,” Kaplow said. 

The training was made possible through two grants from the Herman H. Fleishman Foundation and the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston.  

Attendees at work

Kaplow said the grants will enable the five Israeli clinicians to become official MGT trainers, allowing for widespread dissemination of the treatment in Israel. The grants are also paying for the translation of all printed materials into Hebrew and adaptation of the intervention to ensure it is culturally appropriate. 

In addition to the Israeli clinicians, the Houston training drew more than 100 other mental health professionals from across Texas, including Hannah Schepps Roussel, a licensed marriage and family therapist who works at a Dallas preschool for homeless children.  

Despite an extensive background in trauma therapy, Schepps Roussel said she drove four and a half hours to attend the training to complete a “missing piece” in her clinical education. “The grief piece is one that I think we really need to research much more and incorporate in our everyday conversations,” she said. 

Read more about the training in the Jewish News Syndicate.