College Times

This fall Arizona State University’s School of Social Work will be offering a new graduate level certificate in the practice of alternative medicine.

The Graduate Certificate Assessment of Integrative Health Modalities is an interdisciplinary 15-credit program open to students in social work, nursing and even professionals that are in health and human service-related businesses.

“What the program is going to do for students is not necessarily teach them to practice these modalities, but understand them, so that when they are working with a client in the future they will know what treatments a client has available to them,” said Debra Palka, a program spokeswoman. “What they will be able to practice are some simple meditative techniques, and go pretty deeply into mindfulness and meditation. “  

The School of Social Work, which recently moved to the Downtown Phoenix campus, has offered a course in holistic therapies for six years and has consistently generated a lot of interest. Classes are filled to the maximum capacity annually, so this certification seemed to be the right decision. 

“The demand is really great from nurses and social workers to really get some core knowledge in this area,” Palka said. “Obviously there are a lot of holistic training places, but we can’t find another institution that offers this in higher education.”

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