LD Touch Therapy

What is Touch Therapy?

We all communicate through touch - we have ‘touch conversations’.  It is another language where our touch is our own personal signature through which we can also communicate emotions. Touch Therapy uses touch to try to connect and communicate with someone.

This is particularly important when a person does not use words to communicate, whose behaviour is concerning and who may also experience mental health difficulties. Looking at the quality of supporters’ touch is also important as many people who need support, have no choice but to receive touch when, for example, requiring personal and intimate care. 

 

 

Who is Touch Therapy for?

• Where a person’s anxiety, mental ill-health, emotional state can lead to behaviour of concern, including self-injurious behaviour, particularly where there is a risk of places where they live or work, breaking down;
• Where Touch Therapy may contribute to the prevention of admission to institutions, so that a person can continue to use community services;
• Where behaviour of concern may be a reaction to a particular event, for example bereavement, loss, experience of abuse and trauma;
• Where a person seems to find it difficult to receive touch or to connect and communicate or be understood and, therefore, to form relationships. This includes where a person finds touch difficult in specific situations such as personal care, medical interventions;
• Where the touch element of a person’s sensory processing could be further explored;
• Where a person’s perception or awareness of their own body is negative; they do not feel valued or where our difficult experiences cause us to ‘forget’ our bodies;
• Where a person requires support at the end of their life.

 

 

What is the aim of the service?

• To explore a different way of connecting where this seems difficult for both the individual and their supporters.
• To support the improvement of a meaningful relationship between the care receiver and their care givers.
• To offer space to explore touch as a means of communication - this includes inviting touch to become a reciprocal ‘touch conversation’. Interactive touch enables us to work and communicate together, for example, when someone uses their own touch to hit, scratch, poke their own body - the therapist may ask to be involved in this movement and action in order to support a reduction in its impact and importantly to convey that they are being listened to. The therapist will use the person’s own rhythm of touch to invite connection.
• To actively listen through touch and convey that ‘we are trying to listen even though we may not understand’.
• To support a person to recognise their own body and explore valuing it.
• Through Somatic Trauma Therapy, offer support to explore how our body expresses past/current trauma (however trauma is defined); and if possible, use our body to help us change this expression. Somatic means ‘relating to the body’. It is important to explore this when a person cannot access a talking therapy.
• To enable someone to experience some ‘rest time’ from continual activity, or high stress arousal; to enable our ‘fight and flight’ expression to return to a more balanced state.
• To create space for someone to ‘just be’ who they are - no attempt to change this - invariably in this space change does however reveal itself.  Very, very occasionally, this has had an impact on medication reduction.
• To support the plans put in place (such as Positive Behaviour Support plans), to help someone through the stages of communicating through behaviour of concern.
• To ‘be with’ someone at the end of their life, and support carers to do so through their touch.

 

 

Referrals

Eligibility criteria:

• Aged 19 years and over (or within 6 weeks of their 19th birthday).
• Diagnosed learning disability and needs specialist health support that cannot be met through mainstream services even with the use of reasonable adjustments.
• Registered with a Birmingham GP.
• Moving into the Birmingham area with a Birmingham residential postcode and an identified Birmingham GP, but are unable to register with the GP until they have moved into their property (for example, a service user discharged from hospital or a complex case moving into the area and going through the transfer or handover of care process). Confirmation will be required for service users eligible for s117 that the transferring Learning Disability Service have had a conversation with the local Integrated Care Board (ICB).

 

A referral to the service can only be made through a professional in the service who is already working with you, such as your Community Nurse, your Psychologist, your Psychiatrist, Occupational Therapist, Speech and Language Therapist, Dietitian, Physiotherapist. Please contact them if you feel Touch Therapy will be useful or the professional working with you will suggest it.    

 

You can find out more about the service and about referrals by contacting the Learning Disability’s Single Point of Access:

• Phone: 0121 466 4980
• Email:  BCHNT.ldreferrals@nhs.net.

 

If you are a healthcare professional making a referral, please get in touch to receive a referral form.

 

 

Touch Therapy Impact study

The Touch Therapy Impact Study evaluates the impact of the Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BCHC) Touch Therapy Service for adults with Learning disabilities who may not be able to communicate verbally or access conventional talking therapies. The study gathered feedback from service users, carers, families and support staff to assess the value, outcomes and future role of the service.

 

Among the positive findings that this study identified, it was found that Touch Therapy:

• Improved emotional wellbeing and relaxation: participants and supporters consistently reported that Touch Therapy helped people feel calmer, less anxious and more relaxed, contributing to improved overall wellbeing.
• Reduced behaviours of concern: the study found evidence that some individuals showed fewer behaviours of concern, helping them engage more positively with staff, peers and everyday activities.
• Enhanced communication and self-expression: service users were were better able to communicate needs, preferences and discomfort, with some developing new ways to express themselves and advocate for their own needs.
• Encouraged stronger relationships and social connections: participants reported improved relationships between service users, carers, family members and peers, leading to greater trust, engagement and reduced isolation.
• Access to therapeutic support for people unable to use talking therapies: the service provides a unique trauma-informed therapeutic option for people who do not communicate through speech, helping address health inequalities and offering emotional support that would otherwise be inaccessible.

 

Touch Therapy Impact Study Summary [pdf] 687KB