Making Connections

Learning Through Experience

Unique Learning Opportunities
A family centered approach based on somatic learning to support children, adolescents and adults with fragilities.

Sense, Feel and Move with Awareness and Pleasure

Learning through Experience

Sensing, Feeling and Moving with Awareness and Pleasure

Families with a person/ child with a disability face many challenges, in general and on a day-to-day basis. Making connections means to support the progress of the person/ child, the care of the parents and caregivers for the person/ child as well as the care for themselves, supporting a wide range of learning processes, from micro movements to locomotion in space, from neuro-muscular organization to talking, getting up and walking. We combine a structural approach working with the different body system (like organs or fascia) with sensory integration and functional alignment of the neuromuscular system. Our approach facilitates people, children, parents and caregivers in experiences to explore their bodies in new ways, with awareness and pleasure in movement and touch, with concrete applications what to do to support the person/ child in everyday activities, practical things to do and how to support the person’s/ child’s abilities.

Our work is based on Body-Mind Centering®, Rolfing®/ Structural Integration and the Jeremy Krauss Approach® (JKA).

We offer individual sessions for children, disabled people and parents as well as workshops for parents, caretakers and professionals

Sessions for Children and People with Disabilities

Sessions for Parents and Caretakers

Workshops for Parents and Professionals

Making Connections 

addresses many topics for the Person/ Child and the Family like …

… how to connect with each other, support and counter support
… making connections on many levels in oneself
… how to become aware of existing abilities to unfold potentials
… how to acknowledge one’s own expertise and body intelligence
… how touch and movement lay the base for learning
… life long learning
… exploring the relationship of gravity and space, weight and balance
… exploring primitive reflexes, righting and equilibrium responses
… the importance tone and posture
… the autonomic nervous system and co-regulation
… how to observe, facilitate and play 
… how to support the independence and the agency of the child
… how to respect and support the parents 

A Gentle, non-intrusive Approach

Our approach is gentle, non-intrusive, and enticing rather than demanding. It is highly specific to the individual person/ child. We do not force, but engage, interact and seek to spark the child’s inherent curiosity and interest. We support self-directed learning, stimulating, independent of the abilities of the person/ child and the process of discovery. We always look at the whole person and fully embrace the process of each person and their caregivers, parents and family.

Sessions for Children and People with Disabilities

The main focus of the sessions with the child/ person is to support progress and the care of the parents and caregivers. That includes a wide range of learning processes, from micro movements to locomotion in space, from neuro-muscular organization to talking, getting up and walking. Each session is specifically tailored to each child/ person and each family. The sessions combine a structural approach working with the different body system (like organs or fascia) with sensory integration and functional alignment of the neuro-muscular system. The ability of the child/ person is at the center, rather than the disability, and the understanding of the whole person and its multiple links with the world stands. The sessions are based on the science of neuroplasticity with the idea that by forming new neural connections the brain can change and reorganize, which allows the child/ person to change and overcome various developmental challenges. The sessions with children are in the presence with the parents or one parent. 

Sessions for Parents/ Adults

 

Listening and understanding where people are and what they need is at the core of the work with parents and caregivers. To care for another person, a child, an adult, or an elderly demands a lot of energy and can create conditions of stress and exhaustion. It is not always easy to find time for oneself and to pay attention to one’s own wellbeing. The challenge is to balance one’s own needs with the needs of other. Gentle touch and the invitation to discover subtle movements frees up bodily restrictions, and by improving one’s posture – physically and emotionally – finding new ways to cope with challenging situations. An individual session clarifies one’s own resources and allows to reconnect with one’s ability to self-regulate, to increase resilience and to find joy in life.

Workshops for Parents and Professional

Learning means making new connections between mental, emotional and physiological processes. The brain develops on the base of experience. The plasticity of the nervous system allows us to learn throughout life and make connections within ourselves and with others and the environment: within the realm of the self, gravity and space. This also includes the context, the family, society, schools and institutions, as well as the group of educators and therapists caring for a child with special needs. These connections create the foundation of all learning processes. The workshops are specifically tailored to share our approach with parents and professionals. A big part of a workshop is experientially, that means that the participants experience in their own bodies movement and touch as the foundation of learning. We also discuss key concepts and share short videos, which demonstrate the direct link between one’s own experience and the application in individual session. Please write to us, if you are interested in hosting a Making Connections workshop. 

In 2021 we offered a series of online workshops, which are available as recordings. For more information click on Video Series.

Get in Touch. Get Involved.

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Faenza, Italia

thgreil@gmail.com