Every month, a group of about six or eight kids meet at Burnaby's Bill Copeland Sports Centre for a special session designed to strengthen and stretch their heels.

Local mom and photographer Jillian Chateauneuf coordinates the group for children with club feet, cerebral palsy or toe walkers, and she's named it Flexi-foot.

"For the kids, it's a bit of a play group," Chateauneuf says.

Most of the kids have club feet, a condition where babies are born with their feet twisted upward and inward. The cause is unknown, and it can be fixed through surgery, but the children need to be monitored until they stop growing to make sure their feet stay straight. Exercises can help, Chateauneuf says, and that's where Flexi-foot comes in.

"You do exercises to try and teach the muscles to grow the other way," Chateauneuf says.

The group is also open to "toe-walkers" - kids who have a habit of walking on their toes and using the heel less because they have tight heel cords, or Achilles tendons.

Toe walking is often associated with cerebral palsy. It's also common in toddlers, but some don't outgrow the habit and may have tight heel cords as a result.

A registered physiotherapist leads the one-hour Flexi-foot sessions full of exercises and stretches to help the children strengthen their heel cords. The sessions are purposefully playful to keep the kids engaged, making the physiotherapy fun. Any child, aged 18 months to 14 years, is welcome to join.

Chateauneuf had a personal reason for starting Flexi-foot.

"My daughter was born with club foot and needed physio, but our extended (health) plan did not cover the cost, so I started this group," she says. "The kids feel better knowing there are other children out there who also have to do exercises, they are not alone."

Chateauneuf does not have any funding to run the group. She collects fees from the parents to cover the cost of the room she rents at Bill Copeland. She got some money from the Canadian Orthopeadic Foundation to run ads, but she would still like to reach more people and get more kids involved.

"There are so many children out there that have fallen through the health-care cracks," she says. "We have had children that were told they would out grow toe walking only to be still doing it at eight years old and others that gave up on exercise because it was geared for adults and too boring for kids to stick with."

The next session is Sept. 18. The class is $30 in advance, or $35 for drop-in. For more information, visit www.flexifoot.ca.

For more photographs, go to www.burnabynow.com.