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
| WHE 2850 | Integrated Personal Health and Wellness | 4 sh |
| WHE 2300 | Foundations of Health and Wellness Coaching | 2 sh |
| WHE 2400 | Methods of Health and Wellness Coaching | 2 sh |
| WHE 3850 | Advanced Health and Wellness Coaching | 4 |
Electives: 8 sh
| WHE 1100 | MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID FOR NON-CLINICIANS | 2 sh |
| WHE 1120 | CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN WELLNESS: HEALTH RELATED FITNESS | 2 sh |
| WHE 1150 | CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN WELLNESS: STRESS AND WELL-BEING | 2 sh |
| WHE 2350 | FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND COMMUNITY HEALTH | 4 sh |
| WHE 3240 | Nutrition | 4 sh |
| WHE 4980 | Health and Wellness Coaching Practicum | 2-4 sh |
| COR 3240 | Substance Abuse and Human Behavior | 4 sh |
| COR 3260 | Human Sexuality | 4 sh |
| COR 4060 | Women's Health Issues | 4 sh |
| COM 3370 | Health Communications | 4 sh |
| PSY 2200 | SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY | 4 sh |
| PSY 3530 | COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY | 4 sh |
| PSY 3840 | HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY | 4 sh |
| HSS 2120 | COUNSELING INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES | 4 sh |
| HSS 2140 | MENTAL HEALTH ASSESSMENT | 2 sh |
| HSS 3210 | EATING DISORDERS | 4 sh |
| SOC 3150 | DRUGS AND SOCIETY | 4 sh |
| SOC 3250 | MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY | 4 sh |
| PHS 2010 | INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC HEALTH | 4 sh |
| PHS 3020 | GLOBAL HEALTH | 4 sh |
| ANT 3250 | Medical Anthropology | 4 sh |
| ESS 2140 | RESEARCH METHODS | 4 sh |
| ESS 2215 | THEORY AND PRACTICE OF STRENGTH TRAINING AND CONDITIONING | 4 sh |
| ESS 2200 | EXERCISE AND INTERVENTION | 2 sh |
| ESS 3133 | EXERCISE PSYCHOLOGY | 4 sh |
| EDU 2950 | 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.