Compassionate touch in care settings
Presence – Comfort – Quality of life
Gentle, responsive therapeutic touch and presence for people living with illness, dementia, immobility, frailty or end-of-life needs.
There are times in life when care becomes less about fixing and more about comforting.
Whether someone is living in a care home, receiving hospice support, recovering in hospital, or spending long periods at home with limited mobility, they may be navigating pain, discomfort, anxiety, loneliness or disconnection from themselves.
Alongside the essential practical care they receive, there can also be a quieter human need:
to be comforted, to be listened to, and to feel held in their experience.
This work offers an additional layer of support – one that complements the care already in place. It supports not only the individual, but the wider circle around them too.
What is Compassionate Touch?
Compassionate Touch is gentle, consent-led therapeutic bodywork offered fully clothed and adapted moment by moment to the person’s needs.
This is not a routine massage or pamper treatment. It is responsive, tailored, relational care. Sessions are guided by what is needed on the day – physically, emotionally and relationally.
This may include:
- Gentle holding and grounding touch
- Soothing touch or soft bodywork to ease aches, tension or restlessness
- Abdominal support for discomfort, tension or digestive sluggishness
- Calm presence and emotional attunement
- Space to talk, reflect or simply be heard
- Nervous system regulation through steady, compassionate contact
- Support for relaxation and sleep
There is no fixed sequence. Everything is tailored around the person in front of me, and what their body, mind and emotions are asking for in that moment. This work begins by listening, understanding, attuning and responding. Through touch, through words, and through presence.
How this work may help
While every person’s experience is different, Compassionate Touch may help:
- Reduce agitation and restlessness
- Ease anxiety and supporting nervous system regulation
- Improve relaxation and quality of sleep
- Provide comfort and soothing physical aches or tension
- Support emotional wellbeing through connection, presence and being heard
- Offer non-pharmaceutical support alongside existing care
- Encourage a sense of safety, grounding and calm
- Support gentle abdominal comfort where digestion feels slow or uncomfortable due to immobility, tension or dehydration
- Reduce feelings of loneliness or isolation through regular therapeutic contact
- Create moments of connection, dignity and relief within challenging circumstances
When someone is unwell, ageing, or nearing the end of life, much of the support they receive is focused on practical needs. Compassionate Touch offers something alongside this: a space to slow down, soften, and receive care that is centred entirely around how they are feeling.
Sometimes healing is not about cure. Sometimes it is about comfort, connection, relief, rest and feeling seen, heard and human in the midst of it all.
Who is Compassionate Touch for?
Sessions can be arranged for individuals, family-supported visits, or as regular half-day and full-day therapeutic presence blocks within care settings. This work may support:
- Care home residents
- Nursing home residents
- People living with dementia
- Bedbound individuals
- Hospice and palliative care patients
- Those recovering from illness or surgery
- People living with chronic pain or neurological conditions
- Housebound individuals needing therapeutic support at home
- Individuals living alone who would benefit from regular therapeutic contact
- Families wanting additional support for a loved one.
I currently provide regular Compassionate Touch sessions at Strode Park Foundation, a specialist care setting in Herne Bay, working with residents with complex neurological needs and limited verbal communication, and at Roselands Care Home with people who have Down’s syndrome — as well as seeing a range of people with varying needs in the community.
If someone you love could benefit from this, you’re very welcome to book a free call. You don’t need to know exactly what’s needed, we’ll work that out together. Many of these sessions are arranged by family members or carers, so you’re in good company.
How sessions work
Sessions are typically 30 – 60 minutes and take place bedside, in a chair, or wherever the person is most comfortable. All touch is offered through clothing and adapted to mobility, comfort and energy levels.
Sessions can be arranged for individuals, care settings, or family-supported visits.
For lighter wellbeing-focused massage sessions in residential settings, you can also explore my Residential Care Home Massage offering.
Areas covered
Based in Whitstable, working across East Kent: Whitstable, Herne Bay, Canterbury, Ashford and surrounding areas. Visits further afield (across Kent and the South East) are individually quoted.
If you would like to explore whether this support could help someone in your care, or someone you love, please get in touch.
For care providers
If you’d like to explore regular sessions for your residents, book a free call or we can arrange a trial visit so you can see how residents respond.
Fees
Fees vary depending on the setting, number of people being supported, session length and travel. As a guide:
- Half-day therapeutic presence blocks available for care settings, allowing multiple residents to receive support within one visit
- Full-day therapeutic presence blocks available for larger settings or regular ongoing support
- Local individual bedside and home visits from £25–£45, depending on time and location
- Visits further afield are individually quoted to reflect travel time.
My intention is to keep this work as accessible as possible, while recognising the care, time and presence it asks of me. My long-term aim is for access to depend on need rather than ability to pay. I’m developing the venture with that goal in mind.
Please get in touch to discuss what support feels needed. Book a free call – no obligation, just a conversation about what would help.
Rooted in lived experience
This offering has grown not only from my therapeutic work, but from personal experience supporting loved ones through hospital stays, hospice care and end-of-life transitions.
Alongside this, I have worked with bedbound clients and people living with dementia, witnessing first-hand how meaningful gentle touch, presence and being truly listened to can be.
These experiences have shaped my understanding of how deeply human this work is.
It sits at the heart of Rooted Wellbeing’s wider philosophy: that healing begins when we feel safe enough to soften, listen and reconnect.