Julia Alvarez

Open Source Wellness (OSW) was founded in 2016 by two psychologists, Dr. Elizabeth (Liz) Markle and Dr. Benjamin (Ben) Emmert-Aronson, to address the siloing of physical and mental health in the healthcare system and its failure to adequately address people’s mental, physical, and social well-being needs from a holistic perspective. We address this through our Community As MedicineⓇ (CAM) model. An innovative, evidence-based lifestyle medicine intervention developed by OSW, CAM is an equity-centered, trauma-informed, culturally-relevant, experiential coaching model that supports the whole person with physical activity (move), healthy nutrition (nourish), social connection (connect), and stress reduction (be). Based in Oakland, CA, we provide CAM in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area through a direct service approach. In Alameda County, CA we partner with Recipe4Health, the public health department’s Food As Medicine initiative, to serve the county’s Medi-Cal population. We also license our model to community, clinical, and health plan partners across the U.S. Through our CAM Learning Collaborative, we provide these organizations training and implementation support to help ensure the success and financial sustainability of their CAM programs. This includes support in developing their health coach team and helping their leadership strengthen clinical integrations. We offer our CAM health and wellness coaching training program (CAMtP) to build the community of health coaches with expertise in our trauma-informed, equity-centered, culturally-relevant approach to health coaching. CAMtP is approved by the National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching. Learn more: Overview of OSW: http://bit.ly/3Jbf2SY Our evidence-based Outcomes: http://bit.ly/45qHjMB CAM Learning Collaborative: http://bit.ly/45L8uTH CAM Health Coach Training Program: http://bit.ly/45L8GlT