About us

The Alliance for Integrative Wellbeing exists to bring together the people, knowledge and ideas that are shaping a more integrated approach to human health and wellbeing. 

We are creating a professional and public platform for holistic, complementary and integrative practitioners, educators and training providers—and for the broader conversations that need to take place about whole-person wellbeing. 

Our purpose is to bring practitioners together, increase public understanding, encourage informed choice, support professional practice and create opportunities for education, collaboration and meaningful discussion across the wellbeing field. 

We believe people deserve to understand the range of choices available to them.

We believe skilled practitioners deserve greater visibility. 

And we believe some of the most important advances in human wellbeing may come when we bring knowledge together rather than keeping it separated. 

Why I Created the Alliance

For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by wellbeing, nature and the way the human mind and body work. 

I've now spent more than 40 years working in the wellbeing field and, since 2008, training holistic practitioners. I've written courses, developed industry-accredited programs, and spent a huge part of my life learning, teaching and talking to people about wellbeing. 

And there is something I've seen over and over again. I'll be talking to someone who is struggling with pain, stress, anxiety, exhaustion or some other problem, and I'll find myself thinking, there are so many other pathways you could explore. 

I might know a practitioner who works in that area, a therapy they've never heard of, or an approach involving nutrition, movement, creativity, the nervous system, lifestyle or the connection between the way we think and feel and what happens in our bodies. Not instead of doctors, medication, surgery or conventional medicine when we need them. As well as. 

And so often, people aren't interested simply because they don't know enough about these approaches to consider them real options. That's what I want to help change. Because I also know extraordinary practitioners. People who have spent years developing their knowledge and skills and who genuinely want to help others. Yet many struggle to find clients because the people who could benefit from their work don't understand what they do—or don't even know their modality exists. 

There's a gap between the people looking for answers and the practitioners who may be able to help them. 

I want AIW to help close that gap. I believe deeply in science and conventional medicine. And I believe deeply in holistic and natural approaches and the connections between our minds, bodies, emotions, lifestyles, environments and experiences. 

More than anything, I believe in what might be possible when we bring those worlds together. 

After more than 40 years in this field, I've reached a point where I don't want to keep thinking about this quietly. I want to talk about it. I want practitioners to be seen. I want people to understand that they have so many more choices. And I want to bring people together to have conversations that can move wellbeing forward. 

That's why I created the Alliance for Integrative Wellbeing. 

Because people can't make informed choices about options they don't know exist. 

It's time we helped them discover what's possible. 

Isabelle Cunningham — Director

We believe in whole-person wellbeing, informed choice, professional responsibility, curiosity and collaboration. 

We believe conventional medicine, science, holistic and complementary approaches don't need to exist in opposing camps. 

We believe there is enormous potential in bringing knowledge together, asking better questions and remaining open to what we can learn from one another. 

And we believe everyone should have the opportunity to understand the choices available to them when making decisions about their own health and wellbeing.