HEART TOUCH PROJECT

The Heart Touch Project's goals are to:
- Provide compassionate and healing touch to homebound or hospitalized men, women, and children;
- Train bodywork professionals to provide therapeutic touch therapy to vulnerable populations in Southern California; and
- Educate healthcare practitioners in the Heart Touch approach.

In his landmark publication Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin, Ashley Montagu characterized touch as “above all, an act of communication." He further says that the “use of touch and physical closeness may be the most important way to communicate to acutely ill persons that they are important as human beings." It is in this spirit that Heart Touch staff created a variety of trainings to assist volunteers develop the awareness and skills needed to communicate that importance. For these reasons, the trainings put great emphasis on the dignity and worth of those struggling with serious illnesses and medical conditions.

Heart Touch teaches a gentle, nurturing and mindful form of touch therapy based on a profound respect for the physical and psychological needs of the individual. Strictly speaking, the Heart Touch approach is neither a technique nor a modality, but a specialized form of skilled touch, based on a holistic approach to therapeutic massage.

Over the years, Heart Touch has trained more than 3,500 bodywork professionals, who have given more than 23,000 free massages to 1,000 of the most vulnerable members of our community.

In the years ahead, The Heart Touch Project strives to expand the programs to a wider network of hospitals and hospices in the greater Los Angeles and train more bodywork professionals in the Heart Touch method.