Health and Wellness Coaching Minor
A health and wellness coach works with clients striving to enhance their health and well-being through self-directed lifestyle changes. Coaches provide a safe, attentive, respectful, non-judgmental environment that allows clients the opportunity for unhampered self-exploration and discovery. Health and wellness coaches apply evidence-based methods and techniques to cultivate a client’s intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and skills for adopting and maintaining healthy behaviors. Coaches facilitate a client-centered approach as clients identify their needs, envision their desires, construct goals, and discover individualized strategies that work best for them. The culminating goal is to empower individuals to become their own behavior change expert that can nurture their motivation, develop and enact plans, and embrace and sustain health-enhancing behaviors.
Health and wellness coaches work in a variety of settings, such as clinical health care, corporations, health insurance companies, community organizations, weight loss companies, health clubs, higher education wellness programs, and private practice.
The Health and Wellness Coaching Minor curriculum is aligned with widely accepted standards and competencies for coaching education. Coursework includes but is not limited to: behavior change theory; health and wellness models; health-related content knowledge; positive psychology; designing and conducting sessions; and coaching strategies to facilitate various approaches and methods (e.g., motivational interviewing, appreciative inquiry, and nonviolent communication).
Minor Requirements
Required courses: 12 sh
| WHE2850 | Integrated Personal Health and Wellness | 4 sh |
| WHE2300 | Foundations of Health and Wellness Coaching | 2 sh |
| WHE2400 | Methods of Health and Wellness Coaching | 2 sh |
| WHE3850 | Advanced Health and Wellness Coaching | 4 |
Electives: 8 sh
| WHE1100 | Mental Health First Aid for Non-Clinicians | 2 sh |
| WHE1120 | Contemporary Issues in Wellness: Health Related Fitness | 2 sh |
| WHE1150 | Contemporary Issues in Wellness: Stress and Well-Being | 2 sh |
| WHE2350 | Foundations of Physical Activity and Community Health | 4 sh |
| WHE3240 | Nutrition | 4 sh |
| WHE4980 | Health and Wellness Coaching Practicum | 2-4 sh |
| COR3240 | Substance Abuse and Human Behavior | 4 sh |
| COR3260 | Human Sexuality | 4 sh |
| COR4060 | Women's Health Issues | 4 sh |
| COM3370 | Health Communications | 4 sh |
| PSY2200 | Social Psychology | 4 sh |
| PSY3530 | Community Psychology | 4 sh |
| PSY3840 | Health Psychology | 4 sh |
| HSS2120 | Counseling Individuals and Families | 4 sh |
| HSS2140 | Mental Health Assessment | 2 sh |
| HSS3210 | Eating Disorders | 4 sh |
| SOC3150 | Drugs and Society | 4 sh |
| SOC3250 | Medical Sociology | 4 sh |
| PHS2010 | Introduction to Public Health | 4 sh |
| PHS3020 | Global Health | 4 sh |
| ANT3250 | Medical Anthropology | 4 sh |
| ESS2140 | Research Methods | 4 sh |
| ESS2215 | Theory and Practice of Strength Training and Conditioning | 4 sh |
| ESS2200 | Exercise and Intervention | 2 sh |
| ESS3133 | Exercise Psychology | 4 sh |
| EDU2950 | Research Methods in Education | 4 sh |
4 sh of electives must be at the 3000-4000 level.
Total Credit Hours: 20
Program Outcomes
Students will be able to:
• Employ mindfulness, self-awareness, and self-regulation to exhibit a present,
poised, and calm existence when working with clients.
• Implement tactics to foster clients’ positive emotions, self-efficacy, and self-
awareness on their path to an intrinsically motivated, empowered independence.
• Explain the importance of a client-centered relationship and demonstrate
methods to cultivate a client-centered relationship built on trust, rapport, and
unconditional positive regard.
• Design and conduct coaching sessions with appropriate structure and
components relevant to the type and segment of the session.
• Engage clients with effective communication skills, such as active listening that is
attuned to the tone and energy of the client, strategic use of silence, appropriate
and varied reflections, and thought-provoking, powerful questioning.
• Apply models (e.g., Transtheoretical Model), theories (e.g., Self-Determination
Theory), methods (e.g., motivational interviewing), and techniques (e.g., positive
reframing) to assist clients along a self-directed path of adopting and maintaining
health behaviors.
• Apply health literacy skills and health-related content knowledge to inform their
work with clients.
• Explain the importance and elements of professional conduct, ethics, and legal
considerations in coaching.