Health Coaching in Underserved Communities: Collaborative Care Models and Community Engagement as Drivers for Health Justice

The CIIS Integrative Health Master’s degree trains and empowers our graduates to implement integrative health and wellness skills in the communities where they live and work. Join us for a 1-hour experiential session with faculty members Dr. Ruthann Russo and Dr. Saleena Gupte, where you will learn the power of the group in coaching. You will also learn about and engage in evidence-based integrative health practices such as breathing exercises, meditation, guided imagery, and acupressure. Health and wellness are fundamental human rights. If you are interested in learning more about how you can ensure health and social justice for your community, we invite you to join us!

Please RSVP using the form below. For any questions, please reach out to our program manager Christine Imfeld, cimfeld@ciis.edu.

Event Hosts

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Ruthann Russo, PhD, MPH, JD, DaC
In addition to being a Core Faculty member in Integrative Health Studies at California Institute of Integral Studies, Ruthann is a licensed, board certified acupuncturist and lifestyle medicine practitioner at a Hackensack Meridian Health. There, she is part of a team that provides a full complement of integrative services to patients that includes health coaching, functional medicine, biofeedback, acupuncture, behavior health counseling, reiki, integrative nutrition, and integrative health practice instruction. She is also an acupuncturist at a community acupuncture clinic, where clients experience receiving acupuncture as part of a group. She a co-principal investigator for the Community-Based New Jersey Maternal and Infant Health Equity Research Study. She is fortunate to have found practicing and teaching integrative health and medicine as a second career. Previously, she was a healthcare attorney and founder of several health technology startups. She was inspired to change her career path when her teenage daughter’s neurologist at NYULangone Medical Center recommended adding integrative practices to the treatment plan that helped control her epileptic seizures.

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Saleena Gupte, DrPH, CCH, MPH
Dr. Saleena Gupte is an integrated care consultant and integrative well-being healer, coach, facilitator, and practitioner. She partners with organizations on strategies to advance systems for mental and emotional healing centered in empathy, relational health, trauma and resilience, mindfulness, somatic practices, and inclusive strengths-based approaches. Dr. Saleena holds deep joy in facilitating conversations, coaching, mentoring, and training among cross-disciplinary professionals on human centered communication and presence skills.

Dr. Saleena prioritizes partnerships with community health centers serving underserved and marginalized populations in integrating creative models on whole-person practices. She is the creator of the Care Community Leadership Academy (CCLA)©, a cohort-based training model for direct service professionals and leaders on relational and therapeutic counseling and coaching skills, with a focus on wellbeing practices for burnout prevention and personal resilience. The academy has been adopted by federally qualified health centers, hospital systems, health plans, and public health organizations in California.

In her clinical role, Dr. Gupte serves alongside primary care and behavioral health teams, as an integrative medicine homeopath, holistic behavioral wellbeing coach, and offers traditional-wisdom options for underserved communities through individual and group formats at LifeLong Medical Care, a federally qualified health center in the East Bay, and in private practice.

Related Academic Program

Master of Arts in Integrative Health Studies