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To be effective care providers, today’s helping professionals need more than technical skills. They must also be attuned to clients' concerns and values and grasp the complexities of modern care bureaucracies and they must know which types of jobs are best suited to their interests and how to manage the multiple pressures put on them as care providers. In short, helping professionals need to understand the human dimensions of care. 

The certificate in Care, Health and Resilience prepares undergraduates for working in the helping professions: nursing, medicine, counseling, teaching, community services, ministry, emergency management and related fields. It emphasizes the practices and knowledge expected of paid care providers, ranging from the ability to nurture clients' physical, emotional and social well-being to helping people thrive despite life-altering circumstances. It also addresses the experiences and challenges of professional caregivers, and it advances one of the campus’s three strategic imperatives, which is to "Positively Impact Humanity."

The program's curriculum will:

• Provide students the opportunity to explore a variety of care-related occupations;
• Address the needs of suffering people and at-risk populations;
• Examine the ethical dilemmas posed by medical technologies and bureaucracies; and
• Link students to Colorado’s only academic health sciences center, the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and other local hospitals through its internship program.

Career Possibilities

The program will integrate a variety of occupational practices in order to give students the opportunity to explore career options through an engaging internship experience. It will teach students to reflect on these practices, so they are not only able to help their future clients achieve well-being in life but also have productive and meaningful careers themselves. Limited resources in care professions like nursing currently restrict the number of students who can be admitted in their programs. By preparing Colorado’s students for numerous types of jobs in high-demand industries such as health care, this program will enable students to make wise career choices and pursue them successfully.

Facilities, Programs and Opportunities

By partnering with CU's Anschutz Medical Campus and other local hospitals including Â鶹ӰԺ Community Hospital and Saint Joseph Hospital, the Care, Health and Resilience certificate will foster collaboration across disciplines within the CU system and offer unparalleled educational experiences and job opportunities for students interested in the helping professions.

Requirements

The Care, Health and Resilience certificate will require 18 credit units through three main areas:

1. Core Courses: Students must take three of the four classes listed below that survey the current variety of helping professions, the nature of suffering and care in modern society, the place of risk and resiliency in everyday life, and the ethical challenges that are common to the helping professions.
2. Electives: Students will have to take two classes offered in the College of Arts & Sciences that are essential for today’s helping professional, ranging from the study of human emotion and social psychology to health economics and multicultural leadership.  
3. Internship: During the second semester of their junior year or during the senior year, the students will be required to take a semester-long, 3 credit internship.  These internships will allow the students to apply what they have learned in their formal coursework to a practical experience. The required internship is not applicable to the Sociology major or minor.

Please  on the Care, Health and Resilience Program website for more detailed information on requirements.

Four Year Plan

A typical four year plan will depend on the student’s undergraduate major requirements. The Care, Health and Resilience curriculum will often satisfy Arts & Sciences Core Curriculum as well major and elective requirements for undergraduate degrees.