For the Instructor

Thank you for considering the use of some or all of this text in your course. We feel very strongly and passionately that all people, but particularly those people in the helping professions, need to care for themselves in order to be fully present to care for others. We hope that you will find this text to provide some helpful guidance and tools to meet those primary objectives.

This text was created to accompany a 1-credit, 15-week, semester-long course. As such, each module (or chapter) is intended to take roughly one week of the course. However, as the text continues to expand, more than 15 activities (and therefore modules) may be included. All this means is that it is up to the course instructor to pick and choose both the wellness activities they want to feature and the order that they occur. Even we, the authors, jump around to different chapters from time to time! It helps to keep the students on their toes if they do not know which chapter they will be working with that week.

In our 1-hour class, students start by completing the reflection from the chapter that was covered during the past week. Sometimes there is a brief discussion in class allowing students the opportunity to share about anything they learned or noted about the previous activity. Then we transition to the new chapter, giving the students about 5-10 minutes to read and engage with the text. The class then actively engages with the new activity for the remainder of the class session, ending with a brief review of the Weekly Recommendations/Homework for that week (i.e., how to engage in the activity for at least 1 hour outside of class). This has worked for us, but feel free to modify it to meet your individual or group objectives.

A teaching strategy that we have had success with is utilizing guests to our classroom. Whenever possible, we invite guest lecturers/leaders to explain and participate in that week's activity. For example, having a passionate professor who teaches about children's literature and has a blog full of book recommendations is a great way to introduce the chapter Reading for Fun. Having a certified yoga instructor lead the chapter on Yoga (or even Yoga and Breathwork together) is another great option. Use the expertise around you whenever possible.

In many of the chapters, we note that there is limited research on the (hopefully positive!) effects of a particular wellness activity specific to the helping professions. There is a massive opportunity for scholarship specific to the wellness needs of those in the helping professions, like healthcare workers. Perhaps this text will encourage further exploration of evidenced-based practices and research to expand our current knowledge of wellness for these areas of need. Research for this population would be great!

We have tried to be consistent with the language of the text. At times, the text will refer to the 'course' (i.e., thinking of the entirety of the text in an academic setting) while at other times we will refer to the 'text' in general since most of the modules/chapters can be utilized à la carte outside of a full course.

Anything about Christian integration? Feel free to delete if not necessary... Because the authors of this text work at a Christian higher education institution, Biblical integration is part of our course design. For this text, though, we have limited much of that language to a single paragraph in the background section. Regardless of your belief system, we hope that you will be open to the integration of spiritual practices as a core component of wellness and consider their importance in living a healthy and balanced life.

However you choose to use the information, we hope that it will be meaningful, intentional, and help to care for yourself and others.

~ Tina and Emily (the authors)