A Commitment to Colorado Veterans – Healing Warriors Program

Everyone knows a veteran. They might be a relative, a coworker or a friend, but you may be surprised just how many people you know who have served in the armed forces. For this veteran community, the suicide rate is much higher than in the general public. If a transition to civilian life from active duty doesn’t include support, and in some cases, therapy, the results can be fatal. 

Suicide is the seventh leading cause of death in Colorado, and Healing Warriors Program is doing everything they can to help our Colorado veterans avoid becoming a statistic.* 

What is Healing Warriors Program? 

Healing Warriors Program was founded in 2013 by Ana Yelen and Rochelle Poland to fill a gap in care available to service members and to interrupt the factors that lead to service member suicides. Healing Warriors Program offers non-narcotic treatment options for veterans and their families suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS), Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) and numerous types of chronic pain.  

Healing Warriors Program provides clinical care with acupuncture, craniosacral therapy and Healing Touch therapy to alleviate pain, help restore sleep, and improve overall health and well-being. In addition, they focus on rekindling hope that pain can be relieved, that trauma can heal and that quality of life can be improved. 

Currently, Healing Warriors Program treats nearly 2,500 people at their clinic in Fort Collins and pop-up clinics in Denver, Longmont and Colorado Springs. They have also been offering in-home kits and videos during the pandemic when patients could not visit the clinic.  

Serving and volunteering 

Co-founder Ana Yelen was a long-time Elevations Credit Union member, so when she started Healing Warriors Program in 2013, she thought it only made sense to work with Elevations for her nonprofit’s needs. However, the relationship goes much deeper than banking. 

Here at Elevations, our Chief Technology Officer Pete DuPré served on the Healing Warriors Program Board for a couple of years, and he is now on their Advisory Board. Pete propelled the relationship forward by helping Healing Warriors Program identify gaps in their technology and build a network so they could better focus on their work, not their IT needs. 

When Healing Warriors Program moved to their new clinic location in 2019, Pete wanted them to be set up for success from the beginning. By this time, many of our Elevations employees had volunteered with Healing Warriors Program and used their Volunteer Time Off to provide support where the clinic needed it most. This time, our team helped with cabling and setting up the server and security systems.  

Sometimes, it feels like our Elevations IT and Facilities teams act as the volunteer IT team for Healing Warriors Program. “We are very fortunate to have the assistance of such a high-caliber team. Experts in security help us with HIPAA considerations that standard IT shops simply do not have knowledge or experience with,” said Janet Hatfield, Nonprofit Development Manager for Healing Warriors Program.  

Elevations employees are happy to support. Paul Doss, Elevations Service Desk Specialist III, has volunteered his services with Healing Warriors Program and said, “I love to serve. It is gratifying to me to help those that help others, especially those that have been injured because they served our country.” 

Stepping up when there is a need 

When Elevations moved back-office locations in 2019, we provided office supplies, laptops, monitors, furniture, cabinets and cubicles that Healing Warriors Program wanted from our old facility. Our team even volunteered their time to drive the donations up to Fort Collins from Boulder and install them. One employee who did this work and continues to volunteer with Healing Warriors Program is Michael Herbert. “They are doing much greater work than me. The glory should go to the work they do, not me for helping them,” Michael said when asked about his volunteer work.  

Recently, Healing Warriors Program faced a challenge with privacy in treatment rooms, where veterans and active military receive private treatments. The clinic did not have noise suppressing rooms, so Elevations assembled a task force of volunteers under the leadership of Mike Tressler, VP of Corporate Real Estate, to address this issue. With support and volunteers of Neenan Archistruction and Acoustics & Interiors, Inc., we completed the ceiling upgrade project in the clinic in just one day. 

We’re proud to support Healing Warriors Program and will continue to do so. Whenever they have a need, they know they can count on Elevations and our outstanding employees to be there. 

Helping veterans in our community – what you can do? 

If you want to learn about ways to support Healing Warriors Program and help veterans in Colorado, visit their website to get involved. Another way you can help is by sharing information about these free veteran services with your friends and colleagues. Healing Warriors Program can only help if veterans know their services are available. Learn more about them and the service they offer veterans here.