An innovative project with an ambitious vision for the future.
Lona Cook, DC
The beginning of this project had excellent timing and opened up a major opportunity both for the children we serve and for chiropractic. This is the story of how we were able to start something many thought was next to impossible due to the perceived "red tape" surrounding it.
I practice in western Wisconsin in a town that has a larger public school district. Back in 2015, the school district started to go through changes that opened an opportunity for out-of-the box thinking when it came to health care for its staff. This is the point that I was allowed into the conversation, which began as just that ... a conversation.
Fast forward several years and that conversation grew into an opening to provide chiropractic care on-site during school hours not only to staff, but to the students as well.
Through the organic growth of relationships and understanding that chiropractic benefits all ages, the administration of the school district actually approached us to inquire about starting care with kids. They gave us the green light to begin helping a small group of students who were struggling by bringing chiropractic care to them, to see if there would be any positive effects on the children's education and ability to thrive while at school. The positive response to this first, small group led to further doors opening for the project.
Fortunately, the project has not stopped there. Case in point: We are now engaged in care that is providing information on pediatric chiropractic in the educational setting. This sizable case series is collecting data on how chiropractic helps our school-age population.
We found that timing was everything in the onboarding of this process: from the right people in administration; to the right "chance" run-ins in chiropractic with Dr. Heidi Haavik, Dr. David Fletcher and the Women Chiropractors group; to the right people being brought together to work, including Dr. Amanda Blonigan (née Haines) and Nadine Bresina. Divine timing has led to this wonderful opportunity for the young students – and for the chiropractic profession to show its benefits clinically; benefits we see every day in our offices.
Dr. Amanda Blonigan adjusting a student.
Dr. Heidi and Dr. Amanda both entered the project in 2018. With Dr. Heidi offering her team to help us with collecting data, and Dr. Amanda bringing full-time passion to the project, it has grown and even thrived in spite of shutdowns with COVID protocols.
We are now operating four days a week in the schools, seeing many kids who normally may not have access to chiropractic care. Most of our patient base is kids with special-education needs and clinical labels ranging from autism to seizures, bed-wetting, dyslexia, and other diagnoses that create challenges in their learning environment.
"My passion is to help as many kids as possible," notes Dr. Amanda. "If we can help their nervous system adapt to their environment, it makes a difference in their school day and the staff can see that. Our goal is to be able to measurably show what chiropractic can do for a child."
We are collecting HRV data and other markers with the help of Dr. David Fletcher and Insight Technology. We are also hopeful that we can raise additional funds to buy Fitbits and collect even more data to better understand how the chiropractic adjustments are influencing these children and their overall function and well-being.
Thus far, we have data collected from the past two years of care and are seeing preliminary findings such as improved quality-of-life markers and improved attendance. We are hopeful to see these types of positive changes as we continue to gather more data and recruit more school districts to join us in this series.
Additionally, we just got the green light to begin in a small school district in West Virginia with Leslie Hiles, DC. Dr. Leslie will be joining in to provide more data for the case series.
If you are passionate about helping to demonstrate the effectiveness of chiropractic with school children, we have several places for you to start. If you have a great relationship with your school district and are interested in being involved in this project, please reach out to dramandahaines@gmail.com or drlonacook@gmail.com. Additionally, we formed a nonprofit organization called Well-Adjusted Students (www.on-sitechiropractic.com/nonprofit). Please consider donating to help buy Fitbits and items that will help us effectively measure the impact chiropractic adjustments are having on our students.
Let's take this wonderful project further and show the world how important chiropractic care is for all children. Every child should have access to chiropractic.
We hope you can see the future we see. Just imagine a generation of kids who have access to chiropractic care throughout their youth education. Imagine what that could do for our youth, our profession and ultimately our world. We hope you join us in making this vision a reality!
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