Gateway: News, Updates & Blog

News, Updates & Blog

News, Updates & Blog

News/Blog Articles

Find News from a specific month - select one of the following

Create a more Pro-Touch Society

10 December 2013

Join Gill Tree's campaign to create a more Pro-Touch Society
   

 

This manifesto seeks to raise the professional status and recognition of the Massage industry; celebrating its contribution to individuals, companies and the economy. It intends to influence society to become more nurturing, pro-touch and to push for Massage to be more frequently considered particularly for chronic (long-term) conditions where GP’s have identified gaps in their effectiveness. 

“Half of all GP appointments, and £7 in every £10 spent on health and social care, is taken up caring for people living with long-term conditions. As the population  ages, the proportion of people affected and the demand on health and social services will continue to rise. A growing body of evidence shows that, done properly, a system that supports people with long-term conditions to manage their own health has benefits for the person, their health and for health services. http://www.health.org.uk/

We can all benefit from the stress reducing effects of massage. One in five visits to GP surgeries are stress related  and the 2013 NHS information centre survey revealed that hospital admissions for stress have risen by 7% in just twelve months. Massage provides a preventative role in health care whilst also reducing the symptoms of many diseases and disorders. It is widely used in managing back pain, has a role to play in reducing absenteeism at work and is employed in specialist hospitals in assisting in recovery from treatment and surgery. It can raise self esteem and self worth amongst the sick, mentally ill and elderly and is widely provided throughout the UK in hospices often by massage therapists who volunteer their time to improve quality of life and reduce the pain and suffering of the terminally ill.

We need to create a cultural shift that recognises the crucial importance of touch for our mental and physical wellbeing and embrace the professional role of the Massage therapist as a catalyst for the release of stress, tension and stimulated good health.

The current barriers to affective access to massage as a therapeutic and preventative intervention need to be eliminated through improved accessibility; overcoming the fear of touch, meeting the costs of treatment for the vulnerable and ill, increasing professional standards and improving the quality and content of educational provision.

Massage is not a luxury for the few, a reward or treat but an essential, cost effective and often cost saving therapy. Nurturing touch for the infant is more important than food. Without it a child can suffer marasmus- they wither away and die. Research tells us that a society where children are held closely to their mother for their first year in life is 60% more likely to be a non-violent society. Beyond infancy; it is equally important for a grown person to stay chemically balanced.

We are currently limited and even damaged by the ‘duties of care’ that inhibit teachers, social workers and foster carers from comforting a child.  I am concerned that we are regulating against human nature. Care homes and hospitals are struggling to care sufficiently for the elderly due to regulations and processes that take time away from the patient. Busy working parents have less time to be tactile with their children. Giving nurturing touch to the young whilst teaching them to say yes or no, empowers them to assert themselves to reject unwanted touch, reduce the opportunity for abuse and teenage pregnancies.

Society is displaying unrest through delinquency, isolation, violence, loneliness, stress, illness, mental illness and abuse of others. By more readily accepting touch we can build a more tactile, loving, respectful and stable society.

The majority of Massage therapists are self employed and are a dedicated group of people who make a huge difference through their work both paid and voluntary. The growth of this Massage industry would contribute greatly to the society and the economy.

Manifesto Actions

    1.  Make Massage and other touch therapies more accessible in a balanced health care system via the National Health Service and Private Medical Health Insurance

- Educate primary health care givers in the benefits of touch as an appropriate language of care within their work

- Ensure massage is provided for conditions where GP’s have identified gaps in effectiveness. (Arthritis, back pain and other musculoskeletal disorders, stress anxiety and depression, cancer, heart conditions, stroke, irritable bowel syndrome, skin conditions and insomnia)

- Develop a prescription program whereby GP’s consider and prescribe massage for their patients where indicated

    2. Raise the professional status of the massage industry and increase the recognition for the way the industry is contributing to and supporting society

- Improve the business skills and acumen of Massage therapists by offering business training

- Equip our youths to have the skills and qualifications to join the massage industry and to run their own businesses, working  with the Further Education Sector

- Up skill Beauty Therapists with  more advanced and varied Massage techniques, stress awareness, improved consultation skills, communication skills, professional demeanour and greater empathy for understanding the emotional and physical needs of their client

    3. Build a statistical awareness of the economic and therapeutic value that massage has in society and organise a campaign to educate society to demonstrate how Massage and touch are not a luxury

- Conduct research to measure savings in medical costs - from the common use of massage/positive touch in neonatal units, cancer hospitals and hospices and including the treatment of depression, anxiety, insomnia and injury to muscles

- Celebrate such hospitals, hospices and care centres and those therapists who provide treatments as a volunteer

- Create case studies on how massage can help relieve or prevent stress related diseases and disorders

- Measure the contribution massage could make towards the UK’s economic recovery

- Educate the public and the medical profession to realise the preventative nature of Massage

- Build a directory and celebrate companies who provide access to Massage as part of their employee welfare program, whilst encouraging others to do the same

- Track the number of hours therapists provide massage on a voluntary basis and provide awards to those offering the most

    ​4. Reduce the limitations and damage caused by regulations and ‘duties of care’ that prevent instinctive and natural touch in our institutions and by service providers

- Raise awareness that there is no “no touch policy”

- Promote training programs  that teach positive touch as a natural interaction between children

- Teach care givers such as nurses, neo natal nurses and carers in homes simple massage skills that impart a sense of wellbeing, respect and being nurtured by the receiver. Ensure carers also receive massage and positive touch.

    5. Reduce and prevent inappropriate touch through empowering the receiver to say no

- Actively promote training programs that ensure there is a clear distinction between caring, loving touch and inappropriate touch, so our children are safely and appropriately cared for and nurtured

- Teach young babies to say no to touch when they do not want it

- Reduce unwanted touch, abuse and teenage pregnancies

    6. Provide a mechanism for ‘Massage For All’ to ensure the vulnerable and poor in society still have access when needed and make massage and the power of touch accessible at the point of need

- Create a ‘Therapist Donation Box’ for clients to offer donation

- Promote the organisation of  local therapists booking services, to  offer an ‘on call’ service to treat those in instant need due to stress, discomfort, grief or injury

- Ensure the Touch Foundation is acting as an efficient broker between therapists who wish to volunteer and those in need

 

CLICK ON IMAGE BELOW TO SIGN UP NOW!


Cookie Warning

This site uses cookies to store information on your computer. See our Cookie Policy page for more details

Monthly e-newsletter

Be the First to Hear about our New Courses & All our News, Interesting Features, Work Opportunities and much more - No cost this is a monthly newsletter

I want to Subscribe

Social Media

Payment methods

Copyright © 1998 to Present Day. Gateway Workshops LTD 85 Great Portland Street, First Floor, London, W1W 7LT |All rights reserved. Legal Notice | 0333 1210742/ Registered in England Number 08301564 | Vat # 943966674. Web Site Intunet Ltd