Background: Mothering handling plays an important role in the daily life of children with cerebral palsy (CP) and their mothers, so that the greatest amount of handling of children with CP is done by the mothers at home. The study aimed to explore the process of mothering handling in the children with CP at home.

Materials and Methods: This qualitative study was conducted using grounded theory methodology in Tehran. The purposeful sampling followed by theoretical sampling. Selecting participants continued to achieve theoretical saturation. The number of participants was 26 including 15 caregivers, 3 children with cerebral palsy, 5 occupational therapists, 1 physiotherapist, and 3 rehabilitation manegers. The main source for gathering data was in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed by Corbin & Straus method (2008).

Results: Six categories/themes emerged from the data, including: motherly care, confronting with unusual co-occupation, confusion in roles, effort to special care, dynamic management of handling, and continuing care. The central category, confrontation with unusual co-occupation, represented the main theme of the research, and all major categories had been related to it.

Conclusion: The results of this research could provide broad perspective to rehabilitation therapists, managers and policy makers for understanding the needs, meeting challenges and concerns of caregivers and children with CP and designing a comprehensive plan for handling process of children with CP and helping them to be empowered for achieving the proper management and effective handling.

Background: Understanding the real needs of children with cerebral palsy and their families  helps the therapists to provide adequate health care service for them. This study aimed to determine the needs  of  mothering handling training for family caregiving of children and youth with CP at home based on the level of gross motor function.

Materials and Methods: This research was a descriptive, analytical and cross sectional study that was performed on 186 children 4-12 year olds with CP from the rehabilitation clinics in the city of Arak. They were selected by simple and purposeful sampling. Clinical tests were Gross Motor Measure Function Classification System Expanded & Revised (GMFCS E&R) to assess the severity of gross motor function lesions and canadian Occupational performance measure (COPM) to determine the needs. Data were analyzed by descriptive tests such as: statistical test and two-way ANOVA.

Results:  The most important need of mothering handling training was self care training specially toileting, feeding, eating and functional mobility related to children with CP in the level of V of GMFCS E&R (transported in a manual wheelchair). There were no significant differences in needs of mothering handling training in areas of sex and severity of gross motor function lesions (p>0.05).

Conclusion: It seems that therapists should combine maternal handling trainings with other interventions in therapy programs, especially in the area of self- care.