Why did we start the non-profit?

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Our non-profit is designed to allow access to chiropractic care for a few different special populations.  Our passion is to help children with sensory processing disorders, foster children with trauma and to help those who are in the lower income brackets that typically can’t afford holistic healthcare services that are not covered by standard health insurance.

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Why this special population?

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Dr. Sherri decided to start this nonprofit in 2022 after becoming a foster parent to her three children in 2020. 

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"I became a foster parent in 2020 to my three children, ages, 3,2,7M at the time.  I had received my foster parent training and there was some information about traumas and how to support these children but I had no idea what I was in for.  My children were broken.  They suffered a lot of trauma from being with their biological parents as well as being in another less than ideal foster home.  Those first 6 months are just a blur in my memory.  A blur of tears, screaming, confusion and hopelessness on our part as their parents.  We didn’t know how to help them heal, where to begin or what to do.  We spent countless hours analyzing the events of the day and coming up with ideas to help the next day go a little bit better and then the next day there would be a whole new set of emotions or traumas that would surface.

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As a pediatric trained chiropractor, I had a “leg up” on the situation.  I was able to sit back at the end of the day with my knowledge of brain development and analyze what was happening to their developing brains.  Yet, I still didn’t have the tools that I needed to support them.  So I dove deep into more Brain Based Chiropractic work.  Learning more about children’s brains, how they develop and what happens when they are exposed to trauma and stress.  I NEEDED to do this work in order to help my kids.

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Yes, there were other services out there… but it wasn’t helping fast enough.  OT and PT was great and my kids learned a lot but the improvements were slow and scheduling was a challenge.  In the meantime we were still struggling at home every day.

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I started doing this work on my kids – and not even on a regular basis because I’m mom and it’s hard to be mom and doctor to your own children.  But even without the best consistency my kids started seeing improvements!  FAST improvements!  They were sleeping better, less frequent emotional outbursts and they even started absorbing the learning activities that we were working on. 

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The obvious next step was to take this work to Vitality Chiropractic.  I implemented this work into the office, but I will be honest,  It takes a lot of manpower and our whole team to care for these children properly.  Which means it isn’t affordable for every family, especially foster families.

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I have a sweet spot in my heart for these foster kids.  My kids have been foster kids and I am so thankful every day that we were able to adopt them out of the system and they are forever on the path to healing. 

For so many foster children, their level of traumas is so deep rooted and they have suffered for such a long time that their brains are stuck in that mode.  They need a great deal of support to help their nervous system learn that the world isn’t a scary place.  They need support to begin that healing process so their brains can get out of survival mode and into a place of learning and growth.

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Too many kids are getting lost.  The services are not doing enough to help their brains truly heal – Therapy, OT/, PT are all wonderful services to help these kids gain the tools to function, but no one is fully supporting their brain, their brain development and helping their nervous system truly heal.

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This is why we decided to start this Non-profit.  Vital Life Holistic Wellness is on a mission to help these children heal from the inside out.  We initiate this healing by combining brain based chiropractic care with brain based exercises, nutrition, polyvagal work as well as parent training.  We work with the foster parents to help them develop a deeper understanding of how their child’s brain works so they can view their child through a different lens.  Not a lens of deficits, labels and what is wrong; but a lens of hope so they understand the meaning behind the behavior and how they can support their child in the time of need".