Workshop Overview: 

Safe Touch for Comfort & Connection

This workshop introduces carers to simple, evidence-informed touch practices that can be used safely in everyday caring contexts. Participants learn how gentle, appropriate touch can:

  • Support relaxation and emotional reassurance

  • Strengthen connection and trust

  • Reduce distress during periods of illness, frailty, or end-of-life

  • Support carers’ own regulation and wellbeing

The workshop draws on principles of geriatric and oncology massage while remaining firmly non-clinical and suitable for use by family carers.

Duration:

3.5 hours (tea break included)

Price:

Base rate, $310 + $50 per participant (max 12)

Policy and Priority Alignment:

This workshop aligns with contemporary aged care and carer support policy by strengthening carer capacity, wellbeing, and social connection through accessible, evidence-informed education.

The program contributes to quality and safeguarding objectives by:

✔ Upholding dignity, respect, and informed consent in care relationships
✔ Empowering carers with practical, non-clinical skills that support everyday comfort and connection
✔ Supporting emotional wellbeing and stress regulation through non-therapeutic, relational practices
✔ Embedding safety, boundaries, and risk minimisation within program design
✔ Fostering peer connection and shared learning to reduce isolation
✔ Operating as a complementary support alongside formal health and aged care services

What the workshop includes

  • An introduction to the mind–body connection and the relaxation response

  • Accessible explanation of the stress response system and how calm states are supported

  • Evidence for the co-benefits of touch for both carers and the person receiving care

  • Safe, non-clinical touch techniques appropriate for older people and those with serious illness

  • Guidance on consent, boundaries, and dignity

  • Simple practices that carers can integrate into daily routines

All techniques are demonstrated and taught in a way that prioritises safety, respect, and individual choice.

All techniques are demonstrated and taught in a way that prioritises safety, respect, and individual choice.