Curriculum: Health & Wellness Coaching Certificate

This skills-based course is designed to provide theoretical knowledge and practical application of health and wellness coaching for behavior change in a variety of settings. Topics include building rapport, effective coach-to-client communication techniques, screening and assessment, motivational interviewing, legal considerations of the profession, and professional scope of practice of the health coach.

This course is designed to provide the student with an overview and understanding of modern public health approaches aimed at preventing and managing major lifestyle chronic diseases. An emphasis will be placed on identifying risk factors, commonly used biometric measures, and current lifestyle recommendations for optimizing health and wellness. Course will focus on leading chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and dyslipidemia.

This interactive course provides an overview of the basic principles and history of integrative medicine and health while empowering students to learn tools for improving patient outcomes and their own self-care. This includes an emphasis on a critical review of the scientific evidence base for integrative medicine approaches as they relate to prevention, treatment of chronic disease, and overall wellness as well as listening coaching from your instructor to provide an interactive learning environment. Students experience a variety of integrative health modalities and a focus on a healthy lifestyle as models for disease prevention, treatment of illness, and overall health and wellness promotion to improve patient outcomes and their own self-care.

Students will experientially explore commonly used mind-body modalities including mindfulness, guided imagery, breathwork, yoga, etc., which enhance stress management and promote overall wellness. This course provides an evidence-base and indication for use of mind-body techniques in a personal and professional/clinical setting. Graduate students will further develop their skills focusing on science by choosing one mind/body modality to research in more depth and propose a pilot research project – i.e. guided imagery as it relates to pre and postsurgical outcomes.

This course will introduce scientifically-validated strategies shown to reduce stress and increase mental wellbeing. It will also seek to increase students’ capacity to overcome setbacks, challenges, and difficulties. The course will include exploration and discussion of the psychological science of self-care and mental wellbeing, and include experiential learning of specific self-care strategies to bolster overall mental wellbeing and resiliency. This course will also develop the students ability to research and analyze current research in the field.

This course will explore concepts relevant to food literacy, culinary medicine, and seek to enhance students’ fundamental culinary and nutritional knowledge for personal health. Throughout the course, we will examine dietary behavior on personal and global health outcomes and provide practical strategies for diet-related behaviors throughout one’s life. To gain a holistic perspective on food literacy, we will also examine facets of food systems and their impact on environments, communities, and public health.

With digestive diseases encompassing more than 40 acute and chronic conditions of the gastrointestinal tract and more than 70 million Americans afflicted with diseases of the digestive system, the second leading cause of disability due to illness in the US with a 150 billion dollar economic impact (US), it is imperative to explore the toll of the Western diet and lifestyle, the role of sustainable food choices and policy on health and climate, the interconnection of the gut and extra-intestinal cellular processes, and the adoption of an integrative model for more effective prevention and treatment of digestive disease and human health. This interactive course helps students learn how to apply these principles in a clinical setting to better educate their patients and ultimately improve patient outcomes.