Safe Harbor is an academic center dedicated to training, documentation, and research, with the purpose of providing information, support, and professional training for therapists and other professionals working with the families of missing persons, abductees, hostages, and those who have returned from captivity, as well as the wider circles of their close communities.

​

Safe Harbor was established as a professional hub for treatment and training in the fields of missing persons, abductions, hostage situations, and the rehabilitation of returnees from captivity and their families. It operates within the Mifrasim Institute, which promotes an integrative approach to psychotherapy training, at the School of Behavioral Sciences, Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College. The creation of Safe Harbor was made possible by a generous donation from the Jewish Federation of San Francisco, which took on the mission of raising resources to address this complex and painful issue, particularly in the aftermath of the October 7th terror attacks, during which men, women, the elderly, teenagers, children, toddlers, and babies were murdered, abducted, and injured.

​

Galit Itzhaki Draizin and Prof. Karen Shalev joined forces with an international network of experts to establish an immediate organizational framework for providing both urgent and long-term therapeutic emotional responses to the issue of ambiguous loss and its many layers. Dr. Sharon Ziv Beiman, in collaboration with the faculty of the Mifrasim Institute and the college, took the initiative to drive the development of this center.