Community Resilience in Crisis: The Sderot Resilience Center as a Scalable Model for Recovery and Growth

• The Sderot Resilience Center drew on years of experience to respond effectively to the October 7 mass trauma. • The center rapidly expanded capacity, delivering comprehensive services even during the full evacuation of the city. • The Sderot model demonstrates the value of an integrated, community-embedded approach to mental health response in emergencies. The mass civilian attack on October 7, 2023, marked a watershed moment in Israeli history, particularly for frontline communities such as Sderot. This paper presents an in-depth descriptive analysis of the response provided by the Sderot Resilience Center (SRC), a community-based mental health facility established in 2007 to address chronic exposure to security-related trauma Based on over 13,000 electronically documented treatment records, this study documents a dramatic surge in service demand following the events of October 7, identifies demographic and treatment-related shifts—including a marked increase in adult service utilization and a relative decline among children and adolescents—and reflects on the unique therapeutic model employed by resilience centers in Israel. Beyond the clinical response, the SRC exemplifies an innovative community-based governance model that integrates mental health, welfare, education, and community services under a unified resilience framework. Operated independently but closely collaborating with the municipality, the SRC’s longstanding presence within Sderot fostered trust and accessibility, allowing residents to view it as a familiar, reliable resource rather than an external intervention. This foundation of trust, combined with the center’s capacity to rapidly scale interventions and adapt to evolving needs, formed the basis of its success in responding to the crisis. Findings demonstrate that such centers can rapidly scale mental health interventions and adapt to evolving needs in times of national crisis.