Dr. Bella Klebanov

My life before BGU:
I grew up in Kiryat Gat and earned my bachelor’s degree in social work at Ben-Gurion University, followed by my master’s and doctoral degrees at Tel Aviv University. I returned from a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University in Canada just before the academic year began.
After my bachelor’s degree, and throughout my master’s and doctoral studies, I worked at the Unitaf Project with refugee and migrant children, and families without legal status. I started as a social worker, gradually became head of social services, and later established the organization’s research unit, which I coordinated until I left for my postdoctoral fellowship.

Why BGU?
Because after Canada, winter in Beer-Sheva feels like a spa 😊.
On a more serious note, BGU’s Department of Social Work embraces an approach that critically examines the social conditions shaping people’s lives. Here, we ask how people’s surroundings shaped their experiences. Here, I also calibrated my ethical and professional compass, and I hope to help my students do the same. It is exactly where I belong.

My research:
I study child abuse within the family, particularly sexual abuse. My focus extends beyond the perpetrator and the child who experienced the abuse to everyone around them, examining the different ways family dynamics shape both the abuse itself and how children and those around them perceive it.
Another major focus of my research is intergenerational involvement with child protection systems: what happens when children who grew up in out-of-home care become parents and encounter the same system again, this time from the other side of the table.
I work with the Haruv Institute, the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, the Child Investigation Service, and McGill University and the Université de Sherbrooke in Canada. My aim is to produce innovative, applied research that is grounded in practice and can make a real difference to children and families affected by abuse and maltreatment.

An insight from my research:
Contrary to common assumptions, child abuse almost never takes place entirely behind closed doors, beyond the sight and hearing of others. In most cases, there are people who see, hear, or at least suspect that a child is being harmed. This knowledge remains fragmented and unspoken among family members, professionals in education, therapy, social services, and healthcare, and others in the child’s wider circles. These people may not even manage to talk to one another and share their concerns about the child.

Something you won’t find on my CV:
I am the mother of five-year-old Sunny and three-year-old Tom. Being their mother is the greatest joy of my life, my source of pride, and my most demanding and difficult role.

If I weren’t a researcher, I would…
Return to practice. Although, truth be told, I have never really left it.

In brief:

• Summer or winter? After Montreal? Summer. Without hesitation
• Steak or tofu? Depends on who’s cooking
• Meticulous planning or spontaneity? Meticulous planning with plenty of spontaneous moments
• Trekking or lounging on the beach? Lounging on the beach
• Car or train? You can read on a train
• Market or mall? There are more stories there
• Sea or pool? Sea