CIIS Brings Premier Program of Health Coaching to India

Joint Project with WELLNESSjiva Institute Launches in January 2017

Seems like the whole world is recognizing the need for health coaches. India's first certification in health coaching arrives in January 2017, just in time for New Year's resolutions to lead healthier lives.

The health coach training and certification program pioneered at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), an accredited university, will expand to India the first week of January 2017 for a premier launch, in partnership with WELLNESSjiva Institute in New Delhi. This exciting new venture is a first-time opportunity for CIIS and WELLNESSjiva to expand CIIS's model of integral education to India. The program also serves WELLNESSjiva's mission to bring wellness education programs renowned for their quality to India, and to pioneer work that meets international standards.

The CIIS health coaching certificate is customarily embedded within the MA in Integrative Health Studies at CIIS, so this is the first time the core foundational content will spin off to be  presented within a two-week workshop. The workshop features the CIIS integral whole-person approach to preventive lifestyle medicine, with the added benefit of perennial wisdom from Ayurvedic philosophy to promote health and well-being. Instructors will be Prof. Meg Jordan, PhD, RN, CWP, Chair of Integrative Health Studies, and educational designer of the health coaching program at CIIS, and CIIS alumna Preeti Rao, MA, founder of WELLNESjiva Institute in New Delhi.

According to Prof. Jordan, "It's exciting to bring this health coaching program to India, and work with CIIS alumna Preeti Rao who graduated in 2012 from our master's program, and is the founder of WELLNESSjiva Institute. We've been wanting to make this connection for educational programming with India, in part because CIIS's connection to Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, the sage of Pondicherry and founder of Integral Philosophy. I'm very proud of Preeti Rao for her groundbreaking work as the first well-established health and wellness coach in India.

"Preeti's academic work while in the US was outstanding. As part of an Aetna Foundation grant for the master's program, she led her peers in offering health coaching to low-income residents in San Francisco. Additionally, she explored wellness management at UCSF Osher Integrative Medicine and at Charlotte Maxwell Complementary Clinic." Dr. Jordan added, "Preeti Rao has become a well-established health coach in India, and has made tremendous inroads, advocating for personal responsibility for lifestyle change, teaching throughout the country, and presenting to India's chain of hospitals, Max Healthcare."

Prof. Jordan continued, "India, like many parts of the world, largely adopted the standard US diet and sedentary lifestyle, and ever since, the rates of obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases have escalated. India has passed early stages of chronic disease and injury epidemic rates, and implications for future disease burden are staggering. The need for preventive services is significant. It seems only right to export something that helps people avoid the worst elements of that lifestyle, and apply cutting-edge methods to change behavior and mindset for optimizing health and well-being." The program at CIIS has been advancing that art and science for the last eight years, and graduates have an employment rate of 89% within six months, and a proven track record for bringing that cutting-edge application to communities, corporations and clinical practices.

About Health Coaching at CIIS

The science and art of health coaching has progressed over the past ten years with a growing body of research. The health coach certification program at CIIS is embedded within the MA in Integrative Health Studies, which has received an award from the National Wellness Institute for academic excellence. Since the program began in 2008, graduates have worked in leadership positions at hospitals and clinics, and throughout the expanding health tech/tracking apps industry. The health coaching certification at CIIS is a leading edge program recognized by the International Coach Federation as an ACSTH site. The program has earned transition approval from the National Consortium for Credentialing Health and Wellness Coaches (NCCHWC), meaning that graduates are eligible to sit for the national health coaching exam in September 2017.

About Meg Jordan, PhD, RN, CWP

Department Chair and Professor Meg Jordan is clinical medical anthropologist, behavioral medicine specialist, psychiatric RN specialist, certified health coach, and author of numerous papers and a leading text, How to Be a Health Coach: An Integrative Wellness Approach, used at over forty college training programs. She is a co-author of a forthcoming chapter in the SAGE Handbook of Coaching, and several peer-reviewed articles on National Standards for Education and Training of Health Coaches. She is on the Executive Committee of the NCCHWC board, the Association Leadership Council for the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine, and past President of the National Wellness Institute board. Dr. Jordan is a former director of integrative practice at the Health Medicine Institute, former health columnist for The Hindu, and health commentator for CNN and for NBC's Today Show.

About Preeti Rao, MA, MS

Founder of the WELLNESSjiva Institute, Preeti Rao is a graduate of the CIIS master's program in Integrative Health, and the first well-established, certified wellness coach in India. Ms. Rao's career path spans a decade in executive management roles across several countries, which has provided her an understanding of the global health care system crisis and the importance of preventive strategies in health promotion. She is a former Reebok Fitness Brand Ambassador and is currently associated with Reebok as their Fitness Consultant. She is spearheading health and wellness initiative in Max Healthcare Hospitals as their coach and consultant, and also has her private practice at the WELLNESSjiva Centre. Her previous professional work at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Aetna Wellness Coaching Program, and Charlotte Maxwell Complimentary Clinic, all in California, USA, has exposed her to integrative medicine clinical practice and increased her confidence in the efficacy of integrating conventional (allopathic) medicine with complimentary and alternative medicine. She is a qualified personal trainer by Aerobics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA) and is also a certified yoga teacher by the Sivananda School of Yoga, Trivandrum, Keral.

About the Health Coach Training in India

The CIIS WELLNESSjiva Institute Health Coach Certification is a 75-hour course, presented as 35% online- and 65% offline-training modules. The modules will be led by Ms. Preeti Rao and Dr. Meg Jordan beginning January 2, 2017 in New Delhi. Content will cover coaching psychology, methods for facilitating and sustaining behavior change, nutrition, exercise and fitness, lifestyle management, and the business and marketing of coaching services.

For more information or registration, contact:  ceo@preetirao.com, or visit the website at

www.wellnessjiva.com, or contact Dr. Meg Jordan, mjordan@ciis.edu.