In Good Hands
Compassionate Healing Center Serves Red Bluff Community…
Tucked into Red Bluff’s Adobe Plaza is a healing center that is a culminating dream of three talented practitioners dedicated to gently promoting health and wellness. It’s a bright, airy space lined with plants, art and a children’s play area where people of all ages come to relax into their treatments.
“We have been really wanting to create what we have now,” says acupuncturist Janette Votaw. “We had this vision and were fortunate to find this place to bring it all together.”
While the Adobe Plaza location is just over a year into housing their practice, colleagues Strawberry Weber (chiropractor), Deana Owens (massage therapist), and Votaw have been operating together as the Compassionate Healing Center in Red Bluff for 15 years. Weber and Votaw were early practitioners of their field, with Weber bringing a gentle form of chiropractic care using activator tools rather than physical manipulation, and Votaw being one of the first acupuncturists in the area.
“We all want to just gently help the patient to feel better,” says Weber. “We all come with compassion, love and gratitude to help each patient live their life to the fullest.” The three modalities complement each other and the partners often find themselves serving the same patients.
“I really try to encourage them to try different modalities,” says Owens, who came to massage therapy in her 30s after having children and working in medical billing. “I just like to make people happy and feel good,” she says. “I ended up loving it. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Anyone can reap benefits of a combined therapy of acupuncture, chiropractic care and massage therapy, but the combination really shines with women entering pregnancy. Votaw’s treatments can promote fertility while Owens and Weber can support a healthy process of pregnancy. Both have special certifications in prenatal care, with Weber saying with a laugh that her instructor emphasized a goal of creating “a luxury pelvis” for delivery.
“I’ve seen mamas from the very beginning to the very end,” says Owens. While everyone loves to celebrate a new life, the center is truly an all-ages place for wellness. “I’ve had the honor to bring babies into the world and hold people’s hands as they leave,” says Votaw.
Weber recalls doing a chiropractic adjustment to a four-day-old baby one day and a patient in their late 90s not long after. And everyone in between. “They stick with services because they feel better, they sleep better and have better digestion. Each modality works a little different but again for that same common goal.”
The three trace the vision for what they’ve developed to Debbie Lytle, who has since passed away. The owner of a popular day spa in Red Bluff, she long dreamed of a multi-functional healing center in the town. “We didn’t have a lot of services back then,” says Owens.
“It was challenging bringing acupuncture to Red Bluff,” says Votaw. “But the patients were there. They were wanting and needing something.” Votaw was in her 40s when she came to the practice after receiving her own healing through the modality. “I just got curious,” she says. “I quit my job and went back to school.”
She has recently added a salt tent to her list of offerings so that patients can experience halotherapy for lungs, sinuses and skin.
The three women agree that the experience at Compassionate Healing Center begins when patients walk in the door and are greeted by Victoria Hislop, the front desk manager. “That’s who you encounter first with her bright, cheery, bubbly personality,” says Weber. “A smiley face when you walk in.”
While patients wait for their service, including massages by a number of additional massage therapists, they are transported by the intentional comfort of the area. “I want it to feel homey and comfortable for anyone who walks in,” she adds, who is proud that her daughter’s childhood table is a centerpiece of the play area.
“The office just feels inviting, welcoming to families,” says Votaw. “It’s inclusive.”
“It’s also accessible to patients with mobility issues,” says Owens. “It has good parking.”
Compassionate Healing Center is a vision realized for both its founders and community. “We’ve built relationships and worked with multiple generations,” says Owens. “We just hope to continue to provide top notch care,” adds Weber. •
Compassionate Healing Center
2150 Main St., Suite 5, Red Bluff
(530) 527-0263
www.strawberryweberchiro.com
