Today we’d like to introduce you to Carrie Smith.
Hi Carrie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Soundstart Pediatric Therapy Center started out in 2015 as an in-home pediatric speech therapy private practice in Winchester, VA when my family moved to the area. We opened our brick and mortar location in 2016 and the following year we added occupational therapy services along with our first sensory gym to the practice. In time, we grew our program to provide pediatric feeding therapy and physical therapy.
We relocated to Jubal Early Dr. in 2023 with a much more open space and improved layout for our team and families. We have continued to add on additional programs and in 2024 started working increasingly more with infants diagnosed with torticollis, becoming one of the primary pediatric physical therapy providers treating this in the Winchester area. We serve school districts in Virginia and have both in-house clinicians and a remote team.
We are a close-knit group who works hard and truly cares about each milestone and gains, both big and small, made with the children and families we serve.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As with any small business, there are always struggles along the way. Our biggest challenge was Covid-19 and how this impacted the work we were able to do. We closed down for two weeks and then reopened via telehealth, which started the telehealth journey for our practice, which we continue today with six remote employees! This has opened doors to provide services to families that live outside of the city and may have a difficult time making it into the clinic for therapy. This has allowed us to work with families who have children who may be more comfortable in the home environment and allow for more hands-on work with families with the toys and materials they have at home, bringing a more functional approach to therapy.
As you know, we’re big fans of Soundstart Pediatric Therapy Center. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We specialize in pediatric therapy for babies through age 21. We use an early intervention model in the clinic environment, incorporating families, siblings, and caregivers into sessions so that they are able to do the hands-on work at home during the week. Increased involvement in the therapeutic process allows families to be aware of all of their child’s goals and actively working as a partner toward progress of the goals on a daily basis.
We are proud to offer play-based services using the most up-to-date evidence-based practices in our fields. We provide pediatric therapeutic services for disorders of swallowing, feeding, speech, language, fluency, voice, hearing loss, gross and fine motor delays, developmental delays, torticollis and plagiocephaly, sensory-based disorders, hand-writing, activities of daily living, and emotional regulation.
We are proud to serve the families in the Winchester, VA area and are proud to have such a caring team that truly cares about the children and families we work with.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Some of my favorite childhood memories related to food are baking cakes and desserts with my mom during the holidays along with our annual tradition of rolling out chicken and dumplings and the home-cooked BBQ ribs that my dad would smoke on the grill for each of my birthdays. My favorite place we would go as a family growing up was to the Buffalo River to do float trips.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.shenandoahsoundstart.org
- Instagram: shenandoah_soundstart
