A focus on behavioral health means prioritizing the mental wellbeing of a patient. This includes identifying crises like violence, abuse, self-harm, and substance use, as well as stress caused by physical symptoms. Whether the patient is struggling to navigate a major life change or managing their mental state after being diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, any compromise to a healthy mind can cause new ailments or exacerbate existing ones. For these reasons, and many others, focusing on behavioral health is a critical part of every medical appointment, despite the specialty of the clinician. The benefit to treating the whole person - instead of just the physical ailment - is a positive step forward in systematic care.
Is This Mastery Certificate For You?
This mastery certificate is designed for practicing clinical health professionals in non-behavioral health roles whether you’re in a role that requires no prior behavioral health training such as nurses, physician’s assistants, nurse practitioners, and medical technicians, or a role that requires some behavioral health training such as medical doctors, peer advocates, and helpline/crisis workers. Behavioral health is a key skill to have as a medical professional no matter what area of medicine you work in as the mental health and state of a patient can have a major impact on their treatment. Whether you’re new to the field or have been practicing for years, the courses in this mastery certificate can help you understand your patients’ behavior and build your skill set.
What You’ll Learn
Throughout your time earning a Mastery Certificate in Behavioral Health Foundations, you’ll acquire the skills you need to improve treatment outcomes by becoming an intermediary between medical and behavioral health settings. All of the courses throughout this pathway are designed around immediately useful skills, so you can begin implementing what you learn as you make your way through the core courses and electives. This pathway will include foundational coursework on the behavioral health profession and its benefits and limitations of integration within traditional medicine. Further coursework will include Behavioral Health Integration (BHI) methods, patient relationship building techniques, and practicing continuous care through advocacy and coordination, rather than increasing patient costs.
How You’ll Learn
The Mastery Certificate in Behavioral Health Foundations is comprised of three core courses and one elective course, all of which have six week run times. Though each course may have slight differences when it comes to scheduling and weekly distribution of content, overall you can expect interactive lecture content, stackable skills that you’ll build on from one course to the next, interactive assessments integrated into lectures, and a cumulative assessment at the end of each course to assess how well you’ve retained your skills.
Skills You Walk Away With
By the end of this mastery certificate program, you will have:
- Newly acquired working knowledge of behavioral health practices and interventions that can be used for holistic treatment approaches and lead to improved patient outcomes.
- Practice relationship building techniques that improve communication between patient and caregiver.
- The ability to demonstrate your new skills in advocating for patient-centered care.