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Program Overview

This XSeries Program has been designed to influence, empower and educate a wider population to improve the health and healthcare of people with intellectual disability.

Worldwide, 60+ million people with intellectual disability experience poor health, die prematurely and receive inadequate healthcare. You will gain an understanding of the barriers and enablers for people with intellectual disability, their families, and their healthcare providers.

In our courses, you will learn about best practice in the field of intellectual disability healthcare and gain knowledge to improve health outcomes for this disadvantaged group.

What you will learn

  • What is the experience of people with intellectual disability around the world, what barriers do they face, and how do they overcome these?
  • What are their healthcare needs and how can good health be promoted?
  • What health conditions do they commonly experience and how can these be assessed and managed?
  • What influence do other factors such as ageing and epilepsy have on their health?
  • What mental health issues do they have and how can these be recognised and managed?
  • What are some of the ethical and legal issues that are of particular relevance to them?

Program class list

1
Through My Eyes - Intellectual Disability Healthcare around the World

Course Details
Learn, from personal stories, the daily life and challenges faced by those with intellectual disabilities.

Course Duration

4 Weeks

Time Commitment

1 - 2 Hours per week

Price

$59.00

2
Well and Able - Improving the Physical Health of People with Intellectual Disability

Course Details
Learn how to help those with intellectual disability achieve better health.

Course Duration

5 Weeks

Time Commitment

1 - 2 Hours per week

Price

$59.00

3
Able-Minded - Mental Health and People with Intellectual Disability

Course Details
Gain an understanding of mental health issues and ethical decision-making for people with intellectual disability.

Course Duration

5 Weeks

Time Commitment

1 - 2 Hours per week

Price

$59.00

Meet your instructors

Miriam Taylor

Miriam is the former Education Coordinator at the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability in the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland. She has a wealth of educational design experience for multi-users including people with intellectual disability, their families, disability organisations and health practitioners. Miriam has established an ongoing international collaboration with and is an invited contributor to the first World Disability Report for the World Health Organisation.

Nicholas Lennox

Nick is the former Director of the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability at the University of Queensland. He is a researcher, educator, advocate and clinician and has specialised in the health of adults with intellectual disability since 1992. He is trained in general practice, and has developed interventions to improve the health of people with intellectual disability.

About This Course:

What is Resilience? Resilience is often perceived as an abstract term that varies in meaning for people from different fields and backgrounds. Nevertheless, it has been a “buzzword” in the discussion around crises and disasters in recent decades.

In this course, we will introduce structure into this confusion and provide clearer definitions for the intangible multidisciplinary and sometimes ambiguous term resilience.

Subsequently, this understanding will serve to improve the learners’ ability to manage crisis situations, as well as to help them plan and focus interventions and protective measures in the field of emergency preparedness and response.

At the individual level, this course will provide learners with personal tools and resources for better coping in various stressful situations.

Resilience is a capacity of society, with implications for day-to-day life as well as in crisis situations. The familiarity with the concept and its’ broad aspects, is an asset to any individual in the pragmatic applied sense, beyond the academic attainment.

This course will introduce the concept of resilience and its relevance in various arenas and times.

We will portray the impact of the disaster on individuals, families, communities, organizations, infrastructure and the interfaces between them.

We will introduce the role of media and social media in the emergency management lifecycle

You will learn how to measure resilience, how to use this assessment to guide you in building response plans for emergency situations.
 

What You’ll Learn:

  • What is resilience
  • What is the role of resilience in disaster situations
  • How can one improve resilience
  • Introduction to Coping
  • The BASIC PH model of coping
  • Continuities
  • Grief and bereavement
  • The effects of emergencies and disasters on individuals
  • Who is vulnerable – at-risk populations
  • Helping the helpers
  • Factors of Community Resilience
  • The role of media during disasters
  • Effective media communication during emergencies
  • CERTs – Community Emergency Response Teams

Meet Your Instructors:

Limor Aharonson-Daniel

Head, PREPARED Center for Emergency Response Research, School of Public Health, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) at IsraelX Prof. Limor Aharonson-Daniel, VP for Global Engagement, is the founding director of the PREPARED Center for Emergency Response Research at BGU. She is a Professor in the School of Public Health in the Faculty of Health Sciences. Limor is an international expert on injury epidemiology and played a significant role in the academization of the field of emergency preparedness and response and in the development of innovative approaches and tools for the study of emergency situations. Among these are the Barel body region by nature of injury diagnosis matrix, Multiple Injury Profiles and the Conjoint Community Resiliency Assessment Measure (CCRAM).

Mooli Lahad

Professor of Psychology, Tel Hai Academic college at IsraelX Prof. Lahad is the founder and President of the Community Stress Prevention Center Kiryat-Shmona , and Professor of Psychology at Tel-Hai College ,Israel He is a Senior medical psychologist; Author and co-author of over 35 books and many articles on the topics of Communities under Stress, and Coping with Life threatening Situations. He is the developer of the Integrative Model of Resiliency BASIC –Ph,”Islands of resiliency” community recovery model and the See Far CBT psychotrauma treatment protocol.

Ruvie Rogel

PhD at IsraelX Dr. Rogel is a lecturer at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Dr. Rogel develops and facilitates workshops and programs in the field of personal, community and national resilience for the public and private sectors. He serves deputy to the CEO of the Community Stress Prevention Center Kiryat-Shmona , and Professor of Psychology at Tel-Hai College ,Israel

Dmitry Leykin

PhD at IsraelX Lecturer at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev and Head of Research at the Community Stress Prevention Center in Kiryat Shmona.
Michal Linder Zarankin - Pearson Advance

Michal Linder Zarankin

Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev at IsraelX Dr. Linder is a Research Fellow and a Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her research focuses on inter/intra-organizational behavior before, during and after crises and disasters, with an emphasis on the range of managerial, group and community organizations' responses to emergencies. In addition to her research, Dr. Linder has taught various courses on emergency and disaster management in the U.S. at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Course Overview

Addiction is such a common problem today that people experiencing alcohol, nicotine or other drug problems present in many different healthcare settings. The challenge of linking people experiencing addiction to the right response is a serious one, and much depends on understanding addiction and recognising the role that we all play in the pathway to recovery.

This course is intended to help you meet this challenge by increasing your understanding of the biology of addiction and the available treatment options in the different stages of the recovery journey.

Key questions we will look at in this course include:

  • When do we call “excessive use” addiction?
  • Why is it so difficult to change addictive behaviour?
  • Who can play a role to get people on the track to recovery?
  • How do you respond to people with mild to moderate problems?
  • How can you assess and increase motivation to change?
  • What sort of interventions can support a person experiencing severe addiction?
  • What is my role as a professional, either within or outside of addiction care?
  • How can I identify the best of the many options available?
  • What are hurdles to get the right support to manage addiction around the world?

 

What You’ll Learn

  • Framework for pathways to recovery
  • How to identify people at risk of addiction
  • Applied understanding of intervention and treatment options

Prerequisites

A background in healthcare may be helpful prior to taking this course, but there are no formal prerequisites.

Meet Your Instructors

​Femke Buisman-Pijlman

Senior Lecturer Addiction Studies at University of Adelaide Dr Femke Buisman-Pijlman is a leader in Addiction Studies and online education. She is an award-winning teacher and researcher in the Discipline of Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide, where she is a Senior Lecturer Addiction Studies and head of the Behavioural Neuroscience lab. As program leader of the International Programme in Addiction Studies, and other postgraduate degrees in Alcohol and Drug Studies, she has taught the biology of addiction and treatment options to a wide range of students. Femke is also the convenor of the major in Addiction and Mental Health which has recently been introduced to the Bachelor of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Adelaide. Femke has extensive experience teaching fully online programs to professionals in the field from all around the world. She has extensive experience working in the interdisciplinary field of addiction. Currently, Femke’s research is demonstrating how early life experiences affect behaviour and susceptibility to addiction. Since 2008, Femke has been Graduate Affiliate Faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University. Femke is postgraduate coordinator for Pharmacology and passionate about engaging kids in neuroscience.

Linda Gowing

Associate Professor in the Discipline of Pharmacology at University of Adelaide Associate Professor Linda Gowing is an expert in best practice in the treatment of drug and alcohol problems. She is a Principal Research Officer at Drug and Alcohol Services South Australia (DASSA), and an Associate Professor in the Discipline of Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide. DASSA is the government provider of specialist treatment services for people with drug and alcohol problems in South Australia. Her work at DASSA enables Linda to bring to the course an awareness of the practicalities of providing treatment to people with alcohol and other drug problems, as well as the more academic knowledge of research evidence. Linda also has experience in health care policy having worked for the Australian Commonwealth Department of Health, including two years in charge of the section on illicit drug policy. Linda’s research interests relate to critical appraisal of research evidence on the treatment of addiction and translation of evidence into practice. She is affiliated with the Cochrane Collaboration, which produces The Cochrane Library, a collection of up-to-date systematic reviews on healthcare. Linda is a member of the editorial board for the Cochrane Drugs and Alcohol Group, an author of multiple Cochrane reviews on different aspects of addiction treatment, and has been a mentor for researchers in Thailand, China, USA and Australia, undertaking systematic reviews. Linda also has experience in the preparation of evidence-based guidelines and has been involved in teaching medical and science students on the treatment of alcohol and other drug users, evidence-based practice and critical appraisal of research.

Robert Ali

Associate Professor at University of Adelaide Associate Professor Robert Ali is a public health physician and specialist in addiction medicine who is passionate about training professionals in the field from around the world. He is the Director of a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Research into the Treatment of Drug and Alcohol Problems at the University of Adelaide and has recently retired from his position as the Director of Community Based Treatments at the Drug and Alcohol Services South Australia. Robert is a member of the Australian National Advisory Council on Alcohol and Drugs, member of the Cochrane Alcohol and Drug Group editorial board and the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence and Alcohol Problems. Robert is also active in teaching undergraduate medical students and online training. Robert has chaired several reviews of the national methadone and/or buprenorphine policies. He was the lead researcher in South Australia for the National Evaluation of Pharmacotherapies for Opioid Dependence.

Abdallah Salem

Head of the Discipline of Pharmacology in the Faculty of Health Sciences at University of Adelaide Dr Abdallah Salem is an expert in the effects of drugs of abuse. He is the Head of the Discipline of Pharmacology in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Adelaide. He teaches pharmacology to all levels of students and across different programs. His teaching and research interests are focused on understanding the central mechanisms underlying the acute and chronic effects of drugs of abuse and dependence. Abdallah is a recipient of a number of learning and teaching grants and he assessed functionalities of various eLearning tools for lecture and other course content delivery.

Course Overview

“If history is our guide, we can assume that the battle between the intellect and will of the human species and the extraordinary adaptability of microbes will be never-ending.” (1)

Despite all the remarkable technological breakthroughs that we have made over the past few decades, the threat from infectious diseases has significantly accelerated. In this course, we will learn why this is the case by looking at the fundamental scientific principles underlying epidemics and the public health actions behind their prevention and control in the 21st century.

This is the first (orgins of novel pathogens) of the four courses, covers these topics:

  • Epidemics: Past, Present and Future
  • Discussion on Ebola and Zika Outbreak, and Supplementary Module on Next Generation Informatics for Global Health
  • Ecology, Evolution and Emergence of Infectious Diseases
  • Medical Detective: Bug Hunting in Epidemics

 

What You’ll Learn

  • Historic transitions and emergence of epidemic infections
  • Factors leading to infectious disease emergence and re-emergence
  • Regions with higher risk and estimated economic costs of emerging infectious disease
  • Ecology, evolution and emergence of infectious diseases such as Zika, Ebola, H5N1, H7N9, H1N1 and Swine Influenza
  • Discovery, proof of association and causation, and control (case review on SARS)

Meet Your Instructors

Gabriel M. Leung

Professor at The University of Hong Kong Gabriel Leung is Dean of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. He is also Chair Professor in the School of Public Health and honorary consultant in family medicine and primary care. Previously he was Head of the Department of Community Medicine. Gabriel Leung served in government as Hong Kong’s first Under Secretary for Food and Health and fifth Director of the Chief Executive's Office. He regularly advises various national and international agencies including the World Health Organization, World Bank and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kwok-Yung Yuen

Professor at The University of Hong Kong Professor Kwok-Yung Yuen, Chair of Infectious Diseases at HKU, has the rare distinction of being a microbiologist, surgeon and physician. He is a fellow of both the UK and Hong Kong Colleges of Pathologists, Surgeons and Physicians, and the American College of Physicians. KY Yuen was the first Director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at HKU– the first State Key Laboratory outside the Mainland. He was also the Scientific Co-director of the HKU-Pasteur Research Centre. KY Yuen played a key role in the discovery of the agent causing SARS, and also published the first clinical and laboratory diagnostic paper on Influenza A H5N1 in the Lancet.

Joseph Wu

Professor at The University of Hong Kong Joseph Wu leads the infectious disease modeling research at the HKU School of Public Health. His primary research is on influenza epidemiology and control, particularly focusing on pandemic preparedness and response. His work primarily entails developing mathematical models to assess the potential benefits and logistical requirement of influenza epidemic mitigation and surveillance strategies. He is a member of the Scientific Committee for the Center for Health Protection in Hong Kong. Joseph Wu is an affiliated faculty member of the Center for Communicable Diseases Dynamics (CCDD) at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is the coordinator of the annual CCDD infectious disease modeling course.

Mark Jit

Professor at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Mark Jit works as both a Senior Lecturer in Vaccine Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and also in the Modelling and Economics Unit of Public Health England. He teaches postgraduate and professional courses on modelling and economics of infectious diseases. His main research interest is in epidemiological and economic modelling of infectious disease control interventions to support evidence-based public health decision making. In particular, his work has helped inform immunisation policy on a range of vaccines (including HPV, pneumococcal, rotavirus and influenza vaccines) in both developed and developing countries.

About This Course:

Injuries, such as motor vehicle crash, youth violence, and suicide, are the leading cause of child and adolescent death. However, almost all of these injuries can be prevented through the widespread application of evidence-based practices and policies.

Public health experts, nurses, physicians, social workers, teachers, child care providers, and parents all play a vital role in pediatric injury prevention. Despite its impact, very little training on injury prevention science currently exists.

This course lays a broad foundation for pediatric injury prevention and will increase your understanding of this major public health issue through powerful, concise, up-to-date lectures, interviews, and demonstrations from a multidisciplinary panel of nationally-recognized injury prevention experts.

This course is designed for multiple fields and levels of training, including healthcare, kinesiology, public policy, social work, pharmacy, dentistry, and psychology. The course is also appropriate for educators, coaches, child care providers, and parents.

As a learner, you will have the ability to select all modules or individual topics that interest you most. Comprised of 8 modules, this course may be taken from the comfort of your home or office, and you can learn at your own pace.

Physician/Nurse CME
The University of Michigan Medical School is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The University of Michigan Medical School designates this enduring material for a maximum of 25.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. Please click this link for more information on FREE CME credits.

If you have any questions about the CME process, please email UMInjuryCenter@umich.edu.
 

What You’ll Learn:

  • Key concepts for successful injury prevention in children and teens, including Advocacy at both the local and national levels
  • Intentional injury prevention including Bullying, Dating Violence, Sexual Violence, Firearm Injury, and Suicide Prevention
  • Transportation Safety, including child safety seats and teen driving
  • Sports Concussion
  • The Opioid Epidemic and Adolescent Substance Use

Meet Your Instructor:

University of Michigan Injury Prevention Center

Course Team at The University of Michigan
The University of Michigan Injury Prevention Center is a comprehensive CDC-funded Injury Control Research Center that addresses urgent injury issues with research, education, and outreach. With nearly 250 members from 20+ institutions and faculty leadership from more than 14 departments at three academic institutions, the Center brings together many disciplines to focus on injury prevention. We aim to reduce injury by: publishing research findings, translating research into practice, disseminating actionable findings to community groups, publishing educational materials for practitioners, and providing support for developing injury policy. While we cover many injury topics, we have particular focus on transportation safety, violence interventions, prescription drug misuse, substance abuse, suicide, concussion, and special expertise in the population of teens and young adults (although not exclusively).

About This Course:

This course will empower non-prescribing providers to directly impact the ongoing opioid crisis in the United States through increased knowledge and tools that will transform practice and policies. The course will inform you about the opioid epidemic and provide information and research about evidence-based strategies that are focused on prevention, intervention, education, or policy.

This open learning course is designed primarily for non-prescribing healthcare, behavioral health, dental and social services professionals, as well as graduate-level students in these fields. Other individuals may also benefit from this course such as educators and physicians. Continuing Education (CE) for licensure is available upon successful completion of course content.

As a learner, you have the ability to select any or all of the modules and topics that interest you. You can complete the course in a linear or non-linear structure according to your preferred viewing order. This course is taught by experts in the field of opioid prevention, intervention, treatment, and policy. Through lectures, panels and interviews, knowledge checks and quizzes, and additional readings and activities, you can explore topics that are most relevant to your work or practice.

The course was developed by three University of Michigan programs, including the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation (IHPI), Michigan-Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network (Michigan OPEN) and the CDC-funded University of Michigan Injury Prevention Center.

The University of Michigan Medical School designates this enduring material for a maximum of 15 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. The University of Michigan Medical School is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

This activity contributes to the CME component of the American Board of Anesthesiology’s redesigned Maintenance of Certification in Anesthesiology™ (MOCA®) program, known as MOCA 2.0®. Please consult the ABA website, www.theABA.org, for a list of all MOCA 2.0 requirements.

If you would like to earn CME/MOCA credit for participating in this course, please review the information here prior to beginning the activity.

This course is approved by the Michigan Social Work Continuing Education Collaborative-Approval #101619-02 for 15 CE hours. The Collaborative is the approving body for the Michigan Board of Social Work.

 

What You’ll Learn:

  • Explain the factors that contributed to the current opioid crisis.
  • Understand the pathophysiology of pain and its treatment, including what opioids are and how they work.
  • Understand how to reduce unintended use and misuse of opioids using various strategies, including prescribing guidelines, surveillance, safe disposal of unused opioids, and intervention messaging.
  • Identify what strategies and tools you can employ to impact the safe use of opioids across clinical care settings and with a variety of populations.
  • Describe best practices for assessing and treating opioid use disorder (OUD) and explain the evidence that informs these best practices.
  • Understand different aspects of public policy that can impact the opioid epidemic.

Meet Your Instructor:

Karen Farris

Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation
Dr. Farris' health services research focuses on social theories to examine how individuals manage medications, and how pharmacists in primary care settings influence medication use. She studies individuals' medication adherence and reasons for non-adherence, including concern and necessity beliefs, and self-reporting adverse effects. She has quantified the impact of pharmacists’ care on medication adherence and health outcomes. Dr. Farris is a member of the IHPI Institute Leadership Team.

About this course

Master the fundamental components of advanced literature searching in the health sciences.

Informationist Mark MacEachern and a team of fellow health sciences informationists at the University of Michigan designed this course for anyone responsible for constructing literature searches as part of their research. This course will specifically help professionals and researchers in the health sciences improve the overall quality and reporting of their literature searches.

After completing the course, you will better understand the importance of literature searches in health sciences work, the components of effective searches, and best practices to sufficiently report the search process. All learners who rely heavily on past research in their project work – regardless of their experience or current competence – will benefit from this practical learning experience.

 

What you’ll learn

  • The components of advanced searches
  • How to identify the types of projects dependent on advanced searching
  • How to construct advanced searches
  • Ways to uncover search-related biases that impact projects
  • Procedures for citation management
  • Best practices for reporting search strategies

Meet your instructors

Mark MacEachern

Mark MacEachern

Health Sciences Informationist at Taubman Health Sciences Library, The University of Michigan
Mark MacEachern is a health sciences informationist at the University of Michigan Taubman Health Sciences Library. As an informationist, Mark teaches health sciences students about evidence-based practice and advanced search methodologies, and frequently collaborates with health professionals on review projects. In 2013, he co-developed the flipped, continuing education course Systematic Reviews: Opportunities for Librarians, which empowers information experts to engage in such projects, and lead the course through 2017. He has also been invited to join the faculty of the Medical Library Association's Research Training Institute, which will see its first cohort in 2018. Mark received his Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Western Ontario in 2007.

Jean Song

Health Sciences Informationist at Taubman Health Sciences Library, The University of Michigan
Jean Song is the Assistant Director for Academic and Clinical Engagement (ACE) for the University of Michigan’s (UM) Taubman Health Sciences Library (THL). She began her career as the Reference Coordinator at the Public Health Library & Informatics at UM and then moved to Pfizer Global Research and Development where she worked as a systems administrator and project manager for their document management and adverse event reporting systems. She returned to UM as the Bioinformationist for THL and a liaison to the National Center for Integrative Biomedical Informatics (NCBI). She then headed and built the Research and Informatics unit at THL and moved into her current role as the lead of ACE. The ACE unit at THL has responsibility for curricular integration and teaching and learning in departments across the schools of health sciences, expert searching and systematic reviews, and clinical information management services. Jean has her B.S. in biological sciences from Stanford University and her MSI from the UM’s School of Information.

Tyler Nix

Health Sciences Informationist at Taubman Health Sciences Library, The University of Michigan
Tyler Nix is an informationist at the University of Michigan Taubman Health Sciences Library, where he partners with health sciences students and faculty on education and research projects related to advanced literature searches, research impact metrics and tools, and data visualization resources. Prior to the University of Michigan, he was an Associate Fellow at the National Library of Medicine. Tyler received his Master of Science in Library Science degree from the University of Kentucky in 2015.

Judith Smith

Health Sciences Informationist at Taubman Health Sciences Library, The University of Michigan
Judy Smith is a Health Sciences Informationist at the Taubman Health Sciences Library (THL), at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Judy partners with faculty, students, and staff in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the School of Public Health. In that role, she works to integrate information skills and resources into the curriculum, providing numerous instruction sessions and consultations on advanced literature review techniques. Additionally, Judy engages with public health research initiatives, especially as they relate to health policy. She also serves as a point person for information needs at an interdisciplinary research complex, the North Campus Research Complex (NCRC), which houses the Institute for Health Care Policy and Innovation. Judy is also working with a team of informationists at THL on a mixed methods study to measure the library’s impact patient and population care. Judy holds a Master of Science, Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Michigan.

About this course

Are you a mental health provider who wants to more effectively work with the increasing spiritual and religious diversity in your clients? Do you know how to help clients who encounter spiritual and religious distress? Or how to harness clients’ spiritual resources to support positive therapeutic outcomes? If so, this course is for you!

Spiritual Competency Training in Mental Health is a program designed to train mental health providers in basic spiritual and religious competencies. Taught by instructors who are experts in the field of religion/spirituality and mental health, this course will equip providers with greater confidence and competence helping clients with religious and spiritual issues. The program focuses on core spiritual competencies (knowledge, skills, and attitudes) that underlie effective mental health care and are common to mental health disciplines and therapeutic orientations. Basic competency in spiritual and religious issues in mental health is an ethical requirement for most professional boards and associations related to mental health clinical practice. Yet, few of us received this training in our graduate programs. This program bridges the current training gap.

The program consists of eight modules and takes about six to eight hours to complete. The modules consist of engaging learning activities, such as watching brief videos, reading text screens, listening to audio clips, and completing short reflection questions and knowledge check questions.

Mental health professionals (MD, PhD, Master’s level, and trainees) of all disciplines are welcome to participate. Therapists who complete the program will be eligible for 6 CE credits.

 

What you’ll learn

  • How to integrate spirituality and religion into clinical practice
  • Common stereotypes about religion/spirituality (RS)
  • The diversity of RS expressions (e.g., spiritual/religious beliefs, practices, and experiences)
  • Why it is important to address RS in treatment
  • The importance of the therapist’s own RS attitudes, beliefs, and practices
  • How to assess RS in clinical practice
  • How to help clients access RS resources
  • How to respond to RS problems that arise in treatment.

Prerequisites

Completed or currently enrolled in a professional graduate program for mental health (e.g., Master’s, PhD, MD, or trainee).

Frequently asked questions

Question:
Does this program qualify for continuing education (CE) credits?

Answer:
Yes! Upon completion of this program, you will be eligible for 6 CE credits. This program is co-sponsored by the Maryland Psychological Association and the Maryland Psychological Association Foundation. The Maryland Psychological Association is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Maryland Psychological Association maintains responsibility for this program and its content. It is the participant’s responsibility to check with their professional licensing board to see if these CE credits are applicable in his or her jurisdiction.

Who can take this course?

Unfortunately, learners from one or more of the following countries or regions will not be able to register for this course: Iran, Cuba and the Crimea region of Ukraine. While edX has sought licenses from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to offer our courses to learners in these countries and regions, the licenses we have received are not broad enough to allow us to offer this course in all locations. EdX truly regrets that U.S. sanctions prevent us from offering all of our courses to everyone, no matter where they live.

Meet your instructors

Michelle Pearce

Assistant Professor, Program Director, Graduate School at University of Maryland, Baltimore
Michelle Pearce, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Graduate School at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Dr. Pearce is also a clinical psychologist who researches the relationship between religion/spirituality, coping, and health, as well as the integration of spirituality into the practice of psychotherapy. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) at Duke University Medical Center and a second fellowship in Spirituality and Health at the Duke Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health. She directs three graduate certificate programs: Aging and Applied Thanatology, Integrative Health and Wellness, and Science Communication. She is the author of the book Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Christians with Depression: A Practical, Tool-Based Primer . Her areas of clinical expertise include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, spiritual and existential issues, mind-body stress reduction methods, and behavioral medicine to address the intersection of mental and physical illness.

Kenneth Pargament

Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Bowling Green State University
Kenneth Pargament is a Ph. D. in clinical psychology, professor emeritus of psychology at Bowling Green State University, and Adjunct Professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of the Baylor College of Medicine. He has published over 300 articles on religion, spirituality, and health, and authored The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice and Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy: Understanding and Addressing the Sacred. Dr. Pargament is Editor-in-Chief of the 2013 two-volume APA Handbook of Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality. Among his awards are the Oskar Pfister Award from the American Psychiatric Association in 2009, the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Professional Chaplains in 2015, and the first Outstanding Applied Psychology of Religion and Spirituality Award from the American Psychological Association in 2017. He was recently cited as “One of the 50 Most Influential Living Psychologists in the World.” His current research interests focus on religious and spiritual struggles and spiritually integrated psychotherapy.

Learner testimonials

“This training has definitely increased my comfort level in integrating spiritualty and religion more often with the clients that I see. In addition, it has increased my therapeutic confidence in knowing where to go when this presents as a piece of a client’s identity and/or the presenting concern.”

Previous Participant

“This training has definitely increased my comfort level in integrating spiritualty and religion more often with the clients that I see. In addition, it has increased my therapeutic confidence in knowing where to go when this presents as a piece of a client’s identity and/or the presenting concern.”

Previous Participant

About This Course:

Despite medical and technological advances, half of the world’s population lacks access to essential health services, and over 8.9 million preventable deaths occur every year. There is an acute global shortage of health workers, a gap that will grow to 18 million by 2030. Studies show that training high-performing community health workers can help close these gaps and save more than 3 million lives annually.

In the past few decades, many community health worker programs across the world have demonstrated their ability to save lives — including in the hardest-to-reach areas. Yet despite this progress, lessons on how to successfully scale these programs as part of national primary health systems are not widely shared.

This course introduces learners to the core concepts of community health worker programs, and explores what is needed to build and strengthen large-scale programs in order to improve access to high-quality health services. The curriculum highlights the key components of designing community health systems, addresses common management challenges, and showcases lessons learned from a range of contributors — from community-level practitioners to government leaders and other global health experts. Through case studies of exemplar countries (including Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Liberia), participants will learn from leaders across the globe how to advocate for, build, and optimize community health worker programs.

This course was created by health systems leaders for health systems leaders. Whether you work in a Ministry of Health, lead or support a community health worker program, mobilize resources and advocate for increased investment in community health, or you are simply interested in knowing what it takes to deliver quality care through community health worker programs, learners will have the opportunity to advance their knowledge and skills to implement critical change. This course can be taken individually, but learners are also encouraged to convene their colleagues from within or across organizations to share insights and further enhance the learning experience.

What You’ll Learn:

  • Core concepts in community health as part of primary health systems
  • Key components in the design and optimization of community health worker programs as exemplified through country case studies
  • How to advocate for community health worker programs with key stakeholders
  • The evidence demonstrating the impact and returns of community health workers
  • How to build coalitions to support government-led programs
  • How to break down silos and reduce duplicative efforts in the wider community health ecosystem
  • The common issues that arise in implementing community health worker programs at scale

Meet The Instructor:

Rajesh Ramesh Panjabi

Assistant Professor Harvard Medical School at Harvard University
Dr Raj Panjabi is Founder of the Community Health Academy, CEO of Last Mile Health, and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. Dr. Panjabi grew up in Liberia and fled Liberia’s civil war with his family when he was nine years old. He returned to Liberia as a medical student and in 2007, where he co-founded Last Mile Health, a non-profit organization partnering with governments to invest in teams of community and frontline health workers who extend the reach of primary health care to the world’s most remote communities. Last Mile Health and a global faculty network are building the Community Health Academy (led by Executive Director, Magnus Conteh), a global platform leveraging the power of digital technology to support countries to modernize the training of community health workers and health systems leaders. Panjabi has worked on rural community-based primary health care systems in Alaska, Liberia, and Afghanistan. Panjabi is a Gavi Champion, member of the International Advisory Group for Frontlines First at the Global Financing Facility, advisor to the Community Health Roadmap, and a member of the Community Health Worker Hub at the World Health Organization, where he served on the External Review Group for the WHO's guidelines on health policy and system support to optimize community health worker programs. Panjabi has authored or co-authored over 50 publications. He has chaired a global study with the Gates Ventures and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation investigating lessons learned from exemplar community-based health care programs. For his work on building rural and community-based primary health care systems, Panjabi was named by TIME as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World and one of the 50 Most Influential People in Healthcare. He has also been listed as one of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune. Panjabi is a recipient of the TED Prize, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and is a Schwab Social Entrepreneur with the World Economic Forum. Panjabi is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and trained in internal medicine and primary care at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He received a Master of Public Health in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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Program Overview

Current medical services in the healthcare system aren’t designed to maintain good health and the services intended to improve health often fail miserably. The rise in chronic disease and healthcare spending is a looming global crisis.

Lifestyle Medicine involves the use of evidence-based lifestyle therapeutic approaches, to prevent, treat, and, oftentimes, reverse the lifestyle-related, chronic disease that’s all too prevalent. This type of healthcare approach provides quality improvements for the future of healthcare.

In this professional series, Dr. Amanda McKinney, an American College of Lifestyle Medicine fellow, explores Lifestyle Medicine’s principles and how to use them in treating many common chronic diseases. Licensed medical practitioners, can refresh or add to their existing knowledge of Lifestyle Medicine.

What you will learn

  • Lifestyle Medicine Core Competencies
  • The root causes of chronic diseases
  • Specific lifestyle based treatment protocols
  • The skills needed to help patients make difficult lifestyle and behavior changes to treat chronic diseases of lifestyle

Program Class List

1
Lifestyle Medicine Fundamentals

Course Details
Learn key concepts of evidence-based lifestyle therapeutic approaches used to prevent and treat the root causes of lifestyle-related, chronic diseases.

Course Duration

1 Week

Time Commitment

5 – 10 Hours per week

Price

$149.00

2
Lifestyle Medicine Treatments of Chronic Disease – Part 1

Course Details
Learn specific lifestyle medicine treatment protocols for a variety of chronic diseases, such as breast cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.

Course Duration

2 Weeks

Time Commitment

10 - 15 Hours per week

Price

$179.00

3
Lifestyle Medicine Treatments of Chronic Disease – Part 2

Course Details
Learn specific lifestyle medicine treatment protocols for a variety of chronic diseases, such as prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and depression.

Course Duration

2 Weeks

Time Commitment

10 - 15 Hours per week

Price

$179.00

4
Applying Health Coaching in Patient Care

Course Details
Learn essential coaching techniques to assist patients with behavior and lifestyle modifications.

Course Duration

3 Weeks

Time Commitment

5 – 10 Hours per week

Price

$199.00

Meet your instructors

Kelsey Pruss

M.S., ACSM-CPT, Program Manager at Doane University
Kelsey Pruss is a wellness-lifestyle medicine coordinator, health coach, group fitness instructor, and personal trainer with a passion for demonstrating how nutrition and behavior change can elevate overall health. She has a Master’s of Science degree in Nutrition and Health Sciences, an ACSM certification as a personal trainer and is the Program Director of Doane University's Institute for Human and Planetary Health (IHPH). Throughout her career, Kelsey has focused on improving human health by providing alternatives to detrimental lifestyle behavior; creating healthy, resilient individuals. Creating a global culture of healthy lifestyles will have a positive impact on human and planetary health.

Amanda McKinney

Associate Dean of Health Sciences & Executive Director of the Institute of Human & Planetary Health at Doane University
Amanda McKinney is a physician with a passion for Lifestyle Medicine and environmental issues who recognizes the intimate relationship between our food and the health of both humans and the planet. She is both a Fellow and a member of the Board of Directors of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and the Director of Doane University's Institute for Human and Planetary Health (IHPH). She founded the IHPH to improve human health by transforming medical education and healthcare delivery and creating healthy, resilient communities. Creating a culture of healthy food, grown sustainably, will have a positive impact on human and planetary health.

Program endorsements

“Dr. Amanda McKinney has formulated a series of lifestyle medicine courses that thoroughly stress fundamental and foundational knowledge. This highly professional contribution is definitely a must for anyone aspiring to possess the necessary tools essential for excellence in the specialty of lifestyle medicine.”

Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr. , MD ACLM 2017 Lifetime Achievement Winner

“Dr. Amanda McKinney has formulated a series of lifestyle medicine courses that thoroughly stress fundamental and foundational knowledge. This highly professional contribution is definitely a must for anyone aspiring to possess the necessary tools essential for excellence in the specialty of lifestyle medicine.”

Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr. , MD ACLM 2017 Lifetime Achievement Winner