Enhance well being, minimize suffering and facilitate healing for children with chronic, acute and life limiting illnesses is the objective of Integrative Touch for Kids. Home Page

Integrative Touch for Kids™ (ITK)

is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose purpose is to enhance well being, minimize suffering and facilitate healing for children with developmental disabilities, genetic conditions, cancers, and other chronic, acute and life limiting illnesses.

Integrative Touch for Kids is working to change the way people think about health and healing for children with special health needs and their families. We are creating a new model of care that recognizes the whole child, the whole family and the whole community. When a child has special health needs, their family has special health needs. We empower children and families and create networks of support within communities that enrich everyones lives.

In July of 2009, we completed the launch of our pilot healing retreat program serving children with special health needs and their families. The highly successful program that integrated whole systems medicine and a whole family approach was the first of its kind in the nation. Our second and third healing retreats, which were held June 20th-26th, 2010, and July 24th-30th, 2011 were increasingly successful. Our healing retreats form the first circle of an integrated community by bringing together families with children with special health needs, volunteer families, general volunteers, medical professionals, and healing arts practitioners. The retreat programs become a locus where healing, education, awareness and an experience of community (common unity) can be nurtured and developed.

February 4th, 2012, 6pm, The Butterfly Gala, Our 4th Annual Tucson Benefit for Integrative Touch for Kids to be held at the Skyline Country Club in Tucson, Arizona.

Come join us for Integrative Touch for Kids' 4th Annual Tucson Benefit Event! Tickets are $125 each. Tables of 8 are $1000. Click the Donate Now button on the left to get your tickets now!

Healing Retreat 2011 - Butterfly Release

To watch a film about our retreat program, click here.

Integrative Touch for Kids' 3rd annual Healing Retreat Program was held from July 24th to the 30th at the wonderful Hacienda del Sol Resort. As part of our Closing Ceremony, we held a mass Live Butterfly Release in celebration of the transformative retreat process and new beginning for the families that attend. If you would like to donate a butterfly for future releases, please click here and select "Live Butterfly" as the program designation. Thank you for your love and support!

Painted ladies are beautiful butterflies native to the Tucson area. Help to replenish the local population while celebrating the families in our community.

We would like to send a thank you to all of the amazing volunteers who made our first ever Healing Day program such a phenomenal success! Thank you for sharing your gifts with the families that attended and for all of the love and dedication that you have shown to children with special medical needs and their families in our community. We couldn't have done it without you!

The historic Hacienda Del Sol resides on 34 scenic acres in the panoramic foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains in Tucson, Arizona. The resort is full of history and is nationally recognized for its cuisine and beautiful gardens; needless to say, we are thrilled to be partnering with Hacienda del Sol to host our Integrative Touch for Kids' Healing Retreat at this very special location.

The blogtalkradio's Susan Piontek recently aired an hour-long interview with Shay Beider, Founder and Executive Director of Integrative Touch for Kids, for the her program, Global Voice! To download or listen, click here.

Shay Beider and Sandra Swanson from Integrative Touch for Kids were featured on The Morning Blend, a talk show that follows Good Morning America and The View in the Tucson area! To see their TV segment, click here.

The Arizona Daily Star published a front page feature on Integrative Touch for Kids and the work that we're been doing with a very special family. Click here to read the story!

NBC did a Kristi's Kids news story on Integrative Touch for Kids' first healing retreat. See it now!

The "Healing Retreat" Video: This video showcases our first retreat and features some of the families, medical professionals and healing arts practitioners that helped to make this remarkable experience possible!

The "We Have a Dream" Video: We have a dream video that describes in more detail the dream for the Healing Retreat Center. Watch it here now (10 minutes).

Integrative Touch for Kids is committed to creating a first of its kind healing retreat center for children with special health needs and their family members. The center will use a whole systems approach to health and healing and will provide a supportive environment to rest, rejuvenate and heal. The goal of the retreat center is to create a safe, nurturing environment where children and caregivers can feel that their physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs are met and where new tools can be acquired for growth and healing. Healing work addressing family dynamics and interpersonal relationships will be explored. The center will be unique in that it will provide healing modalities from around the world for families. This is a multi-stage, multi-year project beginning with a week long pilot program that was launched July 19th, 2009, and continuing with our 2010 and 2011 retreats that took place in June and July, respectively. Our retreat programs are expanding into the development of a new model of wellness and a state of the art healing retreat center with programs for families from around the world.