Solving an Age-old Problem
No surprise, graduation was just the beginning, and it’s all about connection. Sevanti Wellness was created to solve a lingering problem within the wellness community: Most graduates of wellness training programs fail to thrive in their practice, and as many as 80% of them stop practicing within the first year. What happens to the spark they enjoyed during their training? What distinguishes those who thrive in their practice from those who do not?
Conversations with dozens of school owners and practitioners reveal that it came down to three missed opportunities: a lack of practitioner community support (i.e., missed connectedness and shared inspiration), the lack of professional development and mentorship, and the lack of tools to link the practitioner with potential lead clients (i.e., virtual tools). With the rise of telemedicine during the pandemic, we saw an opportunity to solve all three of these limitations. We call these solutions:
The Three Pillars of Team Practice:
Practitioner Community Support + Professional Development & Mentorship + and Virtual Tools.
Pillar 1 – Practitioner Community Support
Connection is everything! Join our Practitioner Team and find connections with other peer practitioners, with your lifestyle and personal values, and, most importantly, with the practice of your dreams.
At Sevanti Wellness, we believe that for our practices to thrive after graduation, we must build a practitioner community of our professional peers. These peers provide the inspiration and professional connection that keeps us engaged socially, exposed to new practice methods, and ordained to meet the highest standards of our profession. To thrive, we must grow. It’s no wonder that healers grow best in community. Not by fulfilling CE credits for trade organizations but by nourishing ourselves as healers. The wisdom of our practice requires time and experience to grow. The SW Team Practice serves as a community lifeline for those who work solo or at home. Isolation and practicing “in the dark” are not inevitable. Sevanti Wellness has centralized a community of healers to support you and your practice. We have each other to share with, lean on, run clinical questions by, and learn from. Sevanti Wellness offers the social glue, mentorship, and virtual tools to build the practice competency needed for practitioners to grow. As humans and healers, we can only grow together.
Community Solutions
Practice in a Community of Your Peers — Practicing alone can be disempowering and alienating. With virtual practice, community support is just a Slack message or Zoom meeting away. Join the SW Team Practice and immerse yourself in professional, social, academic, and clinical teamwork. Learn from and share with your peers. Set up a referral network that reciprocates. Enroll in our mentorship program. Practicing in a clinical community nourishes your gifts, like water and sunshine to a garden.
Practitioner and Leadership Support — All directors and member practitioners agree to support one another. Gain access to our wide range of clinical and academic professionals who can provide advice and support on a limitless range of issues impacting your practice.
- Post clinical questions on your department’s Slack channel. Give and receive feedback in the spirit of community support.
- Practitioners within each practice department form a “kula” or community support network. Learn from your team.
- Access to clinical feedback on challenging cases. Improve your case management skills.
- Grow your practice by offering workshops to showcase your expertise.
- Professional development workshops to help you improve business skills and meet your practice goals.
- Position opportunities such as mentoring, teaching, and tutoring
Kula Gatherings | Clinical Meetings | Two meetings per month — Each clinical department – Ayurveda Counseling, Yoga Therapy, and Vedic Astrology- will hold its own virtual meetings twice per month. Learn clinical skills from and share with your peers. Present challenging case reports for feedback. Use this time to share clinical methods, present findings from your work, share new practice methods, and share resources relevant to each discipline’s unique practice system.
Sangha Gatherings | Informal and Social | One per month — Sevanti Wellness will offer casual virtual meetings, open to practice members across all three departments, to meet and greet, learn from each other’s practices and specialties, and deepen social connections. These meetings are the perfect space to ask questions and brainstorm new ideas. Whether concerning your practice, managing clients, workshops, or anything else relevant to the Sevanti sangha, these monthly virtual calls are the backbone of our community of practitioners.
Cross Referrals – Receive and send referrals from practice members across all disciplines at Sevanti Wellness. Create your own network of SW team member referrals that will reciprocate with their referrals to you. If you are an Ayurveda Counselor, send your client to one of our Ayurveda Nutritionists to create a customized meal plan. If you are a Vedic Astrologer and you sense that your client needs physical support for a recent injury, send them to one of our Yoga Therapists. If a client’s health is not responding to standard care, send them to a Jyotishi. The issue may be in their chart. Highlight your practice specialty topics on your Practitioner Profile page, and others will refer clients to you.
Pillar 2 – Professional Development & Mentorship
In our research, we found that in addition to the lack of community, most wellness practitioners also lacked basic business acumen and an interest to seek it out. After all, didn’t we become healers to create an alternative lifestyle for ourselves that wasn’t business-focused? What if the business skills were taught by those we respected most within our community of healer practitioners? What if the very people we admired for their success were now inspiring our own?
The SW Professional Development Program enables our Team Practitioners to share and discover new skills in clinical settings with the support and guidance of their professional peers. For those interested in being challenged by more experienced practitioners and teachers, we are offering a Mentorship Program that includes mentors with greater experience and specialization within their discipline. In addition to the community peer exchange that comes with general SW membership, our mentors offer one-on-one support at a higher standard of guidance.
Each department (Ayurveda Counseling, Yoga Therapy, and Vedic Astrology) will develop a unique mentorship program based on the needs and practices within their discipline. Check with the Department Director for more details.
Professional Development Solutions
Professional Development: We want to empower your practice. In addition to community, we offer in-house mentorships, professional development workshops, national exam prep courses, online recorded courses from practice management instructors, downloadable PDFs, and continued education to help you rise and expand your practice skillset.
Leadership Workshops: Department Advisors and guest instructors will offer the following professional development workshops:
1. One or two monthly workshops: 60-90 minutes on a topic related to your practice field. No fee.
2. One or two quarterly workshops: 3-4 hours. Minimal fee. TBD.
3. Two biannual trainings: an in-depth online retreat and PD Immersion. Fee TBD.
These trainings are department-specific and will include topics such as clinical methodologies, client management, principles and theories of clinical practice, personal development, data management, business development, teacher training, marketing, branding, and technology used in practice.
Practitioner Workshops: Practitioners are encouraged to offer workshops to other team members. Department Advisors must approve the workshops and are provided at no cost. The workshops aim to educate each other and improve teaching skills. If you are in an Education Mentorship, please speak with your mentor about offering a workshop.
National Certification Exam Prep Courses: Sevanti Wellness team members are not required to be recognized by national trade associations such as the National Ayurvedic Medical Association (NAMA) or the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT). We aim to support graduates immediately upon graduation before they potentially drop out of practice. The period between graduation and NAMA/IAYT certification is critical. Though we do not require it, NAMA and IAYT recognition is a powerful step in your professional development, and we suggest you consider professional membership.
NAMA and IAYT have national certification exams. Preparation for these exams can be a bit intimidating without guidance. Sevanti Wellness will offer prep courses for both exams to support you on that journey.
Continued Education Credits: If you are a professional NAMA or IAYT member, you must submit continued education hours to maintain your membership. NAMA’s Professional Ayurvedic Continuing Education (PACE) program requires professional members to complete 30 credits every two years. IAYT requires at least 24 hours (24 CEs) of IAYT-approved continuing education every three years. Your attendance and teaching time at Sevanti Wellness may be accepted for CEU credits.
Mentorships
The SW Mentorship enables our practitioner members to receive critical support and guidance from a more specialized, experienced mentor within their discipline. In addition to the community peer exchange that comes with general SW membership, our mentors offer both one-on-one and group support at a higher standard of guidance.
Mentorship will be offered in two formats: individual and group sessions. Each department will develop a unique mentorship program based on the needs and practices within their discipline. Check with the Department Director for more details.
Choose a Mentorship Focus:
Clinical Mentorship | Focus on the best practices for case management and advanced clinical skills required to improve client outcomes more effectively. Most of these skills are not taught in schools and come from years and sometimes decades of experience. They are unique to each practice discipline and focus on building realistic and effective treatment plans and improving patient compliance.
Practice Management Mentorship | Focus on the business development skills needed to grow your practice. Skills include practice management, marketing, brand building, mindset, virtual tools, and reciprocal referrals.
Educational Mentorship | Focus on the skills required to teach your area of practice confidently. Skills include curriculum development, effective communication, storytelling, ethics, handouts/manuals/visual aids, course structure, course duration, team teaching, marketing and enrollment, virtual and in-person etiquette, teacher-student boundaries, live and recorded streaming, platforms that support online teaching, and the use of social media.
Pillar 3 – Virtual Tools
The SW Virtual Tools enable our Team Practitioners to access new client leads around the worldwide from the comfort of home. Our virtual tools include access to our client booking platform, automated notifications, encrypted data storage, and intake forms. All are included in the flat monthly membership fee. Control your availability and rates. Client payments are deposited directly into your bank account. DM team members and mentors on our Slack channel. Each department (Ayurveda Counseling, Yoga Therapy, and Vedic Astrology) will have their own Slack channel and communications. Check with the Department Director for more details.
Virtual Platform Solutions
Virtual Practice Tools include:
– Slack channel – each department has a group and individual communications channel.
– Booking platform included – book clients from your profile page on the SW website and/or your website.
– Control your rates and hours of availability.
– Payment processing requires clients to prepay for your services upon booking.
– Booking links and widgets – can easily be plugged into your existing website.
– Zoom links are automatically embedded in your client email notifications upon booking.
– Clinical forms – optional client intake and clinical forms to give your practice additional structure.
