THE FOUNDERS

SYLVIE HÉTU

Sylvie Hétu B.Sc. Ed. lives in Montreal, Canada. She has been working with schools and a range of education-related associations for some 30 years. Following obtaining her degree in Education from Université de Montréal, Sylvie has worked in a day-care centre and then as a primary school teacher, as well as teaching biology and nutrition at the Rudolf Steiner School in Montreal, where she has been a member of the Parent’s Committee for ten years and a member of the Board of Administrators for seven.

Sylvie became a qualified Infant Massage Instructor in 1983, and a qualified Instructor Trainer with the International Association of Infant Massage (IAIM) in 1989. She has pioneered infant massage in Canada, as well as in various countries around the world, including South Africa, Hungary and Japan, and from 19?? to 20?? she was the President of the International Association.

Sylvie is currently a member of the IAIM International Educational Committee, and has created approaches to massage for toddler groups, day-care and pre-school children. Since 1996 she has also offered Waldorf-inspired services, consultations, lectures and resources in education for parents and educators, both in Quebec and abroad. The author of the acclaimed book The Song of the Child, Sylvie has more recently drawn on her wide-ranging experience to create, together with her colleague Mia Elmsäter, the "Massage in Schools Programme", which has been taught in the UK since 2000, and which is rapidly gaining worldwide recognition.

RICHARD HOUSE
(MA [Oxon], Ph.D., Cert.Couns.)

Richard House Ph.D. lives in London, United Kingdom, where he works as Senior Lecturer in Psychotherapy, Counselling and Counselling Psychology at Roehampton University. He is also a human potential facilitator, a supervisor, writer and lecturer, and a campaigner with the Open EYE Campaign for open early childhood learning savechildhood.org and with the Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy allianceforcandp.org, both of which organizations he helped to found. His books include Therapy Beyond Modernity (Karnac, 2003), and co-editing Implausible Professions, Ethically Challenged Professions, and Against and For CBT (all PCCS Books, 1997, 2004 and 2008, respectively) and Childhood, Well-being and a Therapeutic Ethos (Karnac, 2009). His new books In, Against and Beyond Therapy: Critical Essays Towards a ‘Post-professional’ Era and Radical Parent are due out in Summer/Autumn 2010 (PCCS Books and Ur Publications respectively).

Richard is an Independent Practitioners Network founder-participant and a prolific writer in the fields of psychotherapy and education, with many papers in peer-reviewed academic journals and writing a regular column in The Mother magazine. A trained Steiner/Waldorf class and Kindergarten teacher and Chair of Trustees of the London Waldorf Trust, Richard co-orchestrated (with writer Sue Palmer) the two Daily Telegraph Open Letters on ‘toxic childhood’ and ‘play’ (September 2006 and 2007, respectively), which generated a global debate on the current state of childhood in modern technological society. In 2008 he was chosen to be one of London’s “1,000 most influential people” by the London Evening Standard.

Mia Elmsäter

Mia Elmsäter lives in Järna, Sweden. After studying physical education, she moved to the north of Sweden and ran an alternative daycare centre until 1986. After the birth of her youngest son, who has Downs Syndrome, she set up a parent support group for parents and babies. Mia owns and has run an incorporated company, "små liv ab", in Sweden, since 1986, and has held parent/baby classes in baby swim and infant massage since 1987.

She became a qualified Infant Massage Instructor in 1987 and, in 1990, a qualified Instructor Trainer with the International Association of Infant Massage (IAIM).

Mia helped to pioneer infant massage in Sweden, as well as in Norway, Ireland, Japan, and Hong Kong, and has been an active member of the Swedish Board, Treasurer of the IAIM International Board for 12 years, and ran the International Office for 18 years. She has been on the IAIM Committee for Trainer Candidates since 1996.

In 1991, Mia went to Romania to bring infant massage to orphanages there, and helped to set up a foundation to support the first daycare centre in Romania, which mainstreamed children with special needs.

Mia has been involved in creating programmes on Massage in Nursing Homes, Massage in Day Care and Massage for the child/adult with special needs. More recently, she has created, together with her colleague Sylvie Hétu, the "Massage in Schools Programme", which has been taught in the UK since 2000.