Call For Abstracts—Conference : Skinship: Connecting Families, Communities and Cultures Through the Universal Language of Touch
Open until 15 March 2012
5 DECEMBER 2011 | QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA - Skin-to-skin contact and touch between parents and young children is now widely considered more than just a "good thing". It is increasingly recognised as playing a critical role in the establishment of breastfeeding, neurological development and regulation, building secure attachment relationships, immune system development and cognitive development. Many researchers now also consider it an essential foundation for social skills such as empathy and compassion. Touch and Skin-to-skin is also recognised by the World Health Organization as an essential practice in reducing neonatal mortality and morbidity in fragile and vulnerable babies.
Knowledge about how to promote touch and skin-to-skin contact immediately following birth, and also for premature babies ("kangaroo care"), is growing. However, given that touch is so widely recognised as important in many other contexts throughout the early years and in multiple situations, there are remarkably few opportunities for researchers, professionals and parents to engage in dialogue about this critical issue as it relates to family, child and social wellbeing.
This conference, hosted by IAIM Australia, seeks to fill this gap. Skinship 2012 will provide a setting for interested people to explore questions such as what is healthy touch? How (and why) does it work? And, in what ways can be it promoted, protected and restored not only in birth and neonatal nurseries, but in communities, homes, schools and beyond.
Abstracts relating to the conference theme, focussing in any of the following areas are welcome:
- Process: Exploring the mechanisms, benefits or functions of touch and other forms of parent-infant communication & connection.
- Practice: Specific interventions that support, promote, protect or restore healthy touch and other forms of parent-infant communication & connection. Case studies and evaluation papers are particularly invited.
- Possibility: Policies, programs and actions to promote early parent-infant touch and connection to deal with specific social issues - e.g. Human Rights, Breastfeeding, Neonatal Mortaility, Violence Prevention, Mental Health, Environment, Natural Disaster.
The closing date for abstracts is 15 March 2012
Abstracts for any of the following may be submitted: Conference Papers, Posters & Workshops