ENLIGHTEN
Building a Strong Foundation A Woodbury-based physical therapy clinic offers a new way to support families. By Madeline Kopiecki
parent-friendly hours that accommodate busy work schedules to cross-disciplinary services that allow back-to-back therapy sessions, the clinic was designed with the patients’ families in mind as much as the patients themselves. This innovative approach to pediatric physical therapy was inspired by founder Tom Hoel’s own personal experience as the father of a child with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. “With the terminal diagnosis, Tom had a lot of frustrating experiences with therapy,” says his wife and co-owner Sarah Mason. “Just having to do so many different therapy appointments and not having places that were multidisciplinary or collaborative … He felt there was a more innovative familycentric model that could be created.” Hoel left his corporate job to launch a pediatric therapy clinic founded on the things he experienced as a parent, Mason says, adding that many of those concepts have remained part of the center’s core values over the past 20 years. One of the biggest differentiators between the Family Achievement Center and other clinics is how its team speaks to one another and collaborates with the community—the team is involved with the Miracle League and founded the Move to Your Own Groove all-abilities race. “It’s such a funny thing, how simple that sounds,” Mason says. But every time she interviews parents, she says their number one desire is cross-collaboration between therapists, which is a rarity. “It’s not unusual at all in the therapy world for
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June 2022
woodburymag.com
Photos: Family Achievement Center
AT THE FAMILY ACHIEVEMENT CENTER, family comes first. From
