Issue link: http://georgiancollege.uberflip.com/i/879668
JACKIE MUNGAL Committed to training caregivers to provide meaningful care to their loved ones MASSAGE THERAPY, 2016 REGISTERED MASSAGE THERAPIST/LYMPHEDEMA THERAPIST/OWNER, FREEDOM MASSAGE CLINIC A torn ligament in her knee brought Jackie Mungal back to school as a mature student. After working for more than three decades in the health care field, computer distribution and training, and then home-schooling her children, she came to Georgian to study massage therapy. Within a year of graduation, she has started her own home-based business specializing in oncology, palliative and orthopedic massage. One of Jackie's unique offerings is a program she developed called Touching LOVEDones by CarePARTNERS. Using touch and massage techniques to nurture and manage the side effects of disease and its treatments, Jackie sees the program as an opportunity to educate and empower patients and family to safely engage touch techniques. Whether the caregiver is a husband, a mother, a daughter, a brother or father, she can help them provide special, meaningful and quality care to their loved ones. Jackie is focused on growing this side of her business to offer group sessions throughout the community to reach as many people as possible. She is striving to get the program into hospitals and other care facilities. She witnesses caregiver burnout frequently and feels to give them the ability to help relieve their loved one's pain, when they never knew they could do that, is life changing. "When you teach children to help their dying mother, that is 'holy ground,'" she says. Jackie volunteers weekly at the Simcoe Muskoka Regional Cancer Centre and with Hospice Simcoe, providing complementary therapeutic services to those nearing the end of their lives. 2017 PREMIER'S AWARD NOMINEE RECENT GRADUATE CATEGORY 34 GEORGIANVIEW 2017 PREMIER'S AWARD NOMINEES