Blog

January 28, 2015

We’re starting an Indiegogo fundraising campaign!

We told you we planned to start 2015 off strong! We have been spending what seems like all our time preparing to launch a campaign in order to take our mobile learning center out to schools for an entire year!

Our plan is to take all of the great therapies and tools we currently have in our Tempe location, make them mobile, and take them to various schools on a weekly basis. We already have a couple schools/organizations scheduled and organized (Child Crisis Center in Mesa and Children First Academy in Tempe) and we are still working with various children facilities and autism schools in order to finalize even more visits.

We have access to the mobile learning center, through a lease, but we still need help with administrative costs. This includes insurance, gas, maintenance, and wages for two of our trained employees to assist the children through each stage of the learning center.

We are trying to raise $10,000 in order to fulfill this endeavor for one year, and need all the help we can get!

The whole goal of this mobile learning center is to help create more balance in children’s lives socially, behaviorally, and academically by teaching self-regulation techniques to calm themselves. As always, these are non-drug, research-based therapies, such as neurofeedback, vibrations, frequency, and fun interactive games that help control breathing and processing.

We’ll continue to keep you updated on here and on our Facebook page, http://on.fb.me/1Cwyvjb but just wanted to let everyone know about what we’ve been up to!

 

January 5, 2015

The Alternative Intervention Research Clinic. What a mouthful. A big mouthful, but of what? Well to break it down simply, the Alternative Intervention Research Clinic, or AIRC, as we like to call it, aims to create a balance and stability in your life through non-drug alternative care.

We work with people of all ages and backgrounds with various behavioral, social, or academic needs. Adults recovering from addiction, stressed out parents, young children with autism, toddlers having a hard time expressing themselves, and simply those looking for more mental stability in their lives.

By collaborating with various professional resources throughout the community, we are able to offer a whole spectrum of services to our clients. Our core services, which are at our Tempe location and run by us, include BrainPaint, SmartBike, Interactive Metronome, Balance Board, HeartMath, MyCalmBeat, Neurofeedback, Juvent Vibration Pad, Pea Pod, Rife Frequency Stimulation, and more. (In future entries we will go more into detail about each of our services).

Through outside resources, we are able to offer such services as holistic wellness, massage, reflexology, counseling, clinical hypnotherapy, chiropractic care, nutrition, play therapy, art therapy, and personal fitness. Some of these services are available at our Tempe location, while others will be referrals to different facilities or offices.

The only reason AIRC is able to offer so many different, high-quality services is because of the strong relationship we have been able to produce with other professionals in the community. This plethora of services is not meant to overwhelm you, it’s there so we can individualize care to provide each client with optimal results.

When we first meet with new clients, we have them participate in multiple activities in order to see what challenges them the most, what they are most interested in, and what we envision making the greatest impact on them. We work hard to individualize care based on what they are looking for and what they need. No one case is the same.

All of the different pieces of AIRC are researched, prepared for, and coordinated by our Executive Director, Dr. Debbie Crews. Dr. Crews opened AIRC in 1995 after six years of research with autism and special populations at the University of North Carolina-Greensburg.

Initially, AIRC started out as a non-profit through ASU. During this time, Dr. Crews continued her extensive research. In 2009, AIRC became a separate nonprofit organization. For the next four years, our primary focus became horse therapy, simply because of its popularity, due to the positive effect for children with ADHD, autism, and various emotional disorders.

However, in 2013, we decided to open the Clinic doors of our nonprofit in order to focus on the full spectrum of alternative interventions. Horse therapy continues under a separate nonprofit 501(c)(3), Hunkapi Programs. Since 2013, we have been building balance therapies, researching new therapies, acquiring modalities, getting required certifications for the various therapies and interventions, and interviewing and contracting various resource personnel. In May 2014, we began bringing people into the client.

Now, with the start of a brand new year, AIRC plans to mobilize many of our services in order to reach more children at local schools, autism facilities, and other facilities. We are looking forward to another year full of new challenges, friendships, and adventures. So stay tuned to learn more about AIRC, what we do, and what we have planned for the future!