RainStar Therapy Center and Clinic
RainStar is one of the few universities of holistic health care that operates and subsidizes a full-time and Professional Therapy Center.The Therapy Center is open 8:30am until 8:30pm. Monday through Friday and 9am until 6pm on Weekends. We are closed on all major holidays.
The Therapy Center performs thousands of treatments per year and provides therapy six days a week by our staff of licensed professionals, along with student therapeutic massage.
We have a large, diverse, and active patient base of several thousand clients with a variety of ailments and unique situations for RainStar students to practice on as they fulfill their internship requirements while under the supervision Licensed Massage Therapist.
The Therapy Center has several individual rooms along with an herbal medicinary. The massage students offer a variety of bodywork approaches including Eastern Modalities, Myofasical Release, Reflexology, Sports Massage, Lymphatic Drainage, Deep Tissue, Pregnancy, Craniosacral, Thai, Lomi Lomi and Swedish Massage (please see Advanced Treatments.)
Curriculum for Life:
The Vision of the Integrative Medical Therapy Center and Clinic
The best service that a school can provide to its student body is practical real life experience. Schools tend to do a good job of providing theories, information and ideas; but how many give practical life experience specific to the student's job market? The skills learned in the classroom rarely translate into effective work practices in the field. Are the skills necessary to survive in today's marketplace taught? More importantly, are the students integrating the information so that it becomes a part of who they are? How many students can feel confident walking into a new job without fear of the unknown? We are proud to say that RainStar graduates can!
And a Mission Statement is born:To support and direct the knowledge and techniques learned in the classroom to real life circumstances that students may encounter. To facilitate insight and experience into the collaboration with other medical team members so students will become knowledgeable and effective therapists.
The Classroom
The curriculum for the College of Therapeutic Massage includes five main areas of study: Massage, Science, Health, Business and General Education.
The curriculum is competency based in which the College conducts, considers and applies significant research in designing its program that leads to constant and never ending improvement. The competency based curriculum is linked to clear, quantifiable, challenging standards of meaningful demonstrations of knowledge and skills. But, we feel that this is not enough.
Stepping Out of the Classroom
So often in the classroom, theoretical situations arise in which probable solutions are given. Unfortunately, how we think we will respond and how we actually react are seldom congruent. If you factor in the endless amounts of variables to those situations, it is enough to scare any seasoned individual. This is the reality of the classroom's limitations. So that leaves us with the important question of, how do we adequately prepare our students for real life? Our solution was to duplicate those situations in which students will encounter and allow them to experience and evaluate under the safe harbor of the College.
The RainStar Therapy Center is born.
Our Therapy Center is our project based curriculum for life which engages students in addressing real life problems. It is here that learning extends the traditional walls of the classroom, that assessment of student success goes beyond the paper and pen. The Therapy Center provides a safe environment of joy, passion and education with faculty support where students can explore, grow and learn. A place where all students are valued, respected and given the resources to succeed. It is here where teachers help students turn information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom from experience.
From Theory to Reality
The Therapy Center breathes life into the subjects of Massage, Science, Health, Business and General Education. Students combine their knowledge to see and treat patients with a variety of musculoskeletal conditions. It is here that students can see the big picture and how each course is meaningful and important. As in the real world, assessment of student progress is performance based taking into account student's individual talents, abilities and aspirations. As well, learning is not time based. Rather, it is competency based. In other words, it is based on what they have actually learned. Students are given a list of competencies in which they must demonstrate proficiency prior to graduation.
This is life! Tools for Success
The RainStar Therapy Center is a high performing learning community. Human values such as respect, honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, responsibility, and dependability are promoted in the culture. Students work cooperatively as members of a team that includes acupuncture and Oriental medicine, chiropractic and naturopathic medicine. It is here that students learn the essential skills and characteristics necessary for the workplace.
Skills such as:- Creativity
Devising creative and imaginative solutions to problems, problem solving, improving service - Complexity
Understanding the problem, identifying possible causes, understanding how factors affect one other, analyzing strengths and weaknesses, risk analysis and forecasting - Effective Decision Making
How to make the best decision with the available information, choosing options by mapping possible outcomes, weighing pros and cons of decisions, looking at a decision from all perspectives - Project Planning Coordinating different people, estimating planning and completion times
- Time Management
Determining work priorities, costing your time, prioritizing tasks - Stress Management
Surviving and thriving, analyzing and controlling, relaxation techniques - Effective Communication Skills
Conflict Resolution, enabling collaboration within a diverse group, eliminating confusion, defensiveness and misunderstandings, promoting two way communication - Teamwork
Team building and collaboration, building relationships and trust, understanding peer to peer interaction and employer to employee interaction, understanding personality differences in the workplace - Memory
Working efficiently, organizing structured and detailed information - Networking
Promotion, Working SMART (Specific, Measurable, Action oriented, Realistic, Time bound) - In the process of learning these skills, students naturally utilize advanced tools and techniques such as decision trees, force field analysis, six thinking hats, cost/benefit analysis, cause and effect, systems diagrams, cash flow forecasting, risk analysis, and critical path analysis
- Go and Grow
