What an opportunity!
Jan Tedder and her husband, Jim Henderson, are planning to take HUG Your Baby around the world! After more than thirty years of their much-loved day jobs as a nurse and an educator, Jan and Jim are renting their home, packing two small suitcases, and taking off to share their life's work with families in our greater (world) community. They will leave June 15, 2013, and will return at the end of July 2014. (Click HERE to see their travel plans.)
Jan has contacted lactation, childbirth and parenting professionals, as well as nursing educators, about HUG Your Baby. She is delighted by the enthusiastic response of professionals engaged in the important work of supporting new and expectant parents. Thus far, presentations are scheduled in nursing schools, parenting institutes, international conferences, lactation, childbirth and doula organization, and hospitals in:
- Seoul, Korea
- Tokyo and Kagaw, Japan
- Melbourne (speaking at ILCA), Sydney and Adelaide, Australia
- Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand
Efforts are underway to offer HUG Your Baby training in Indonesia, Malaysia, Europe, and the UK.
Jim is traveling with his musical, Ariel's Way. He plans to meet with international schools and theaters that might be interested in his modern musical adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest. In addition, Jim is entering retirement with a new (and, perhaps, not surprising) passion: educating and supporting new fathers. After years of editing Jan's HUG materials, and decades of being "Dad" to our now-grown sons, he wants to help new fathers be the good dads they long to be. "Dad's Got The HUG" has been conceived and will be growing towards birth during our year of travel and study.
We plan on taking you with us--in spirit and in stories. We will be researching and writing about parents' experiences world-wide and will be sharing these stories, as they emerge, in the HUG Your Baby blog. Jim has also promised to write a lullaby for each country we visit, so you are likely to get a taste of that as well.
We are blessed by the people who have supported and encouraged us these many years, and who, in so many important ways, have made possible our own growth and development as people and as professionals. If you are reading this blog, you are one of those people! We promise to stay in touch as our plans develop. And, do let us know if you have international contacts who would like to meet HUG Your Baby or learn about Ariel's Way!
P.S. Jan will be continuing to manage much of the HUG Your Baby activities via the Internet. She will have administrative assistance at home, and is happy to draw on HUG Your Baby Trainers, Gale Touger and Barbara Hotelling, who will continue to be available for speaking and teaching.
Jim is traveling with his musical, Ariel's Way. He plans to meet with international schools and theaters that might be interested in his modern musical adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest. In addition, Jim is entering retirement with a new (and, perhaps, not surprising) passion: educating and supporting new fathers. After years of editing Jan's HUG materials, and decades of being "Dad" to our now-grown sons, he wants to help new fathers be the good dads they long to be. "Dad's Got The HUG" has been conceived and will be growing towards birth during our year of travel and study.
We plan on taking you with us--in spirit and in stories. We will be researching and writing about parents' experiences world-wide and will be sharing these stories, as they emerge, in the HUG Your Baby blog. Jim has also promised to write a lullaby for each country we visit, so you are likely to get a taste of that as well.
We are blessed by the people who have supported and encouraged us these many years, and who, in so many important ways, have made possible our own growth and development as people and as professionals. If you are reading this blog, you are one of those people! We promise to stay in touch as our plans develop. And, do let us know if you have international contacts who would like to meet HUG Your Baby or learn about Ariel's Way!
P.S. Jan will be continuing to manage much of the HUG Your Baby activities via the Internet. She will have administrative assistance at home, and is happy to draw on HUG Your Baby Trainers, Gale Touger and Barbara Hotelling, who will continue to be available for speaking and teaching.