Lena Austin and Renee Lidén - Peaceful Touch
Peaceful Touch—where teachers facilitate children touching other children with simple, nurturing strokes—is a revolution of sorts. Peaceful Touch is based on research that showed that nurturing touch for children elicits a similar response as breast-feeding does in babies, releasing oxytocin, the feel-good “cuddle hormone,” which promotes empathy, calmness and concentration. Today, more than 300,000 students in Europe have been recipients of Peaceful Touch, and it’s rare to find a preschool in Sweden that doesn’t implement it.

Lena Austin is Director of Studies at the renowned Axelsons Gynmastisk Institut. In 1995 when the School for Peaceful touch came into being, Lena Austin became the leader of a project to develop courses for teachers at pre-schools and schools to teach them to give massage to children on a daily basis and to teach children to massage one another.

Renee Lidén completed her training as a massage therapist at Axelsons Gymnastiska Institut in 1981and became qualified as a Naprapath in 1884. In 2002 she became the head teacher of massage therapy training, responsible for teachers and development of the pedagogical programme. During this period, she also taught children at school and preschool how to massage one another.