What Happens on the Touch Therapy Training Programme?
The programme consists of eight one-hour sessions delivered over a period of eight weeks. Parents are taught basic massage movements by a qualified massage therapist. Each parent/child dyad attends every week and is expected to practice at home in the intervening days. Parents are given an accompanying training pack, which contains an instructive weekly guide to the massage movements, an illustrative photograph booklet and a bottle of sweet almond oil. Therapists tailor the instruction to meet the needs of each parent/child dyad. Touch Touch (i.e. physical contact) is reputed to be essential to human growth and development.1 Touch can take many forms, but one therapy that incorporates the benefits of touch is massage. The therapeutic benefits of massage have been well documented. Massage is applied to the soft tissues of the body and has a beneficial effect on the nervous and circulatory systems. The physical benefits are improved circulation of blood and lymph, reduction in muscle ten
