Informing parents and teachers of potential health and wellness risks to children is crucial

As chiropractors, we require a steady stream of new and maintained patients to provide our great service. In fact, an entire industry of chiropractic consulting has developed, with weekend seminars tailored toward practice growth and sustenance.

During these weekends, interested DCs and their support staff evaluate how best to build and maintain a successful office using various means of attracting new patients. This article focuses on marketing to schools and their allied organizations. It is a small segment of community relations that, if successfully promoted, has the potential to spread your message to many more people.

A public-relations trainer outlines how to best use the potential within the demographics of a community. A labor or clerical pool has numerous ergonomic issues that fit right in with our proactive approach toward function and posture. Retail outlets offer space for public screenings. Residential areas have numerous facilities that need our help, including professional alliances such as allied health care providers and attorneys. But, the focus here will be with schools, supportive libraries, and sports facilities.

Children Need Our Attention
Schools have supportive organizations and staff, such as parent-teacher associations (PTAs), sports programs, nurses, and health and fitness teachers. Children are our most precious commodities, and their well-being is foremost in our minds. Children run with their heavy backpacks to school buses; they are active at various sports venues; they take pseudo health classes; and their parents sit through PTA meetings. This easily demonstrates that our attention is needed. Book bags are getting heavier and bulkier, and children are wearing them at an earlier age. Youngsters running to and from their school buses or walking to classes and home with these heavy bags will eventually develop into our future chronic patients. Parents and school administrators need to be concerned about the adverse health risks related to this. For years, the medical profession has been concerned with scoliosis, with school nurses often checking children and referring them to pediatricians for a further evaluation. Our profession should also drive our book-bag concerns, with the emphasis placed on proactive prevention. If we can alert the parents and teachers about book-bag safety and the physical risks involved, we would be providing a great service toward promoting health and wellness within our communities. I wrote an article in 2004 that outlines how to create a backpack-safety program.1

School and after-school sports programs are ripe with potential spine and long-term health risks. Youth football finds very young boys trotting out with heavy regalia while their coaches and parents encourage them to push and play harder. The physical pounding required to participate in a contact sport, such as football, may be tolerated better by an older group, but youngsters in their preteen years may develop long-lasting adverse effects unless compensatory exercises and conservative care is available.

Young gymnasts jumping and falling in training and competition often aggravate their developing spines. How often do young gymnasts fall off a device or twist and turn incorrectly, and how often does their coach console them for a moment and then encourage them to get right back on the beams or parallel bars? Reaching the coaches and the parents with proactive and conservative advice and answers to the potential health and wellness risks to these youngsters is crucial. Our professional skills must reach this segment of our society, and too often it does not.

Figure 1. Fliers are good tools to publicize your programs.

Locating Schools and Interested Facilities
To be proactive in your community and introduce chiropractic and your conservative skills, you must first locate school coaches, after-hours programs, and sport venues. These venues may include recreational facilities with after-school karate, basketball, gymnastics, or cheerleading. A call to these facilities requesting the names of coaches and instructors sets in motion a letter and visitation campaign. A sample letter can read:

“Just a short note to introduce myself. My name is Dr Joel E. Margolies of the Family Chiropractic Center at 4910 Lavista Road, in Tucker, just down the street from Tucker High School. As a health care provider focused on posture, function, and the health of the spine, I am acutely aware that youth sports can be fun and competitive but can also have long-term adverse effects. Children need to participate in sports, and they should be encouraged to do so. But, there are various conservative procedures to stem the wear and tear at this early stage of life. This may include specific exercises, hands-on conservative advice, and timely evaluations to offer advice and corrective procedures. Our office is dedicated to the health and wellness of our community, and there is no higher goal than protecting the well-being of our children. We offer various programs for parents, coaches, and children such as mentioned above. Enclosed, please find our flier and some statistics outlining the need for this conservative approach toward wellness.”

Teachers and supportive staff also need our attention. I recommend contacting the principal or their assistants to generate interest in a brief teachers-and-staff stretch program. If you employ a staff member dedicated to rehabilitation, this is a great opportunity to take the office program on the road. For simplicity, have a number of stretch bands available and pictures of the stretch routine. Figure 1 is an example of a flier you can create to publicize the program.

Middle and high schools usually have health-class instructors teaching anything but health. Meet these instructors and offer to participate in a class to discuss spinal health and alternatives in health care. Using no more than your own patient spinal care class material will open a discussion with the students and their teachers. This stimulates students to request chiropractic care from their parents and their coaches. PTA meetings usually advocate the social life of the school rather than student health and wellness. During these meetings, you should discuss book-bag issues as well as preventive programs during physical activity. In this regard, contact elementary-school nurses and work with the teachers to be more attentive to the size and weight of book bags. This also provides an opportunity to promote chiropractic and your office by sending material home with the schoolchildren. An Internet search will provide you with plenty of data concerning book-bag safety.

Libraries are another area in which you can focus your marketing. People attracted to libraries have a goal in mind. They seek information, and the atmosphere is conducive to learning. What better place than this to offer regular programs concerning community health and wellness? If your local library has a community room, better yet, as this is an ideal area to provide the class and to screen people. To increase your professional alliances, you may wish to team with other allied health care professionals for mini health fairs or to team with a health-food store and gym to promote nutrition and exercise. In other words, you can become the coordinator or go-to facility for everything related to health and wellness. Seek free advertising in the form of free community spots on the radio, in newspapers, and in fliers.

Parents will listen if you have dynamic information, and there is no greater challenge for you or your community than the health, wellness, and safety of our children. We have a great and noble role to play. CP

Joel E. Margolies, DC, sends a free weekly chiropractic-oriented e-mail to more than 10,000 chiropractors in 32 countries. He has authored four books, titled: Smart Start, Workshop Workbook, Chiropractic Marketing and Public Relations, and the Personal Injury Workbook. He also maintains a Web page: www.chirosmart.net.   Contact him at: joel3639@aol.com

Reference
1. Margolies JE. Leader of the backpack. Chiropractic Products. 2004;19:26–30.