The Community Herbalist

A Certification Path

A certification path for the aspiring community herbalist. An experiential program tailored towards the unique community the herbalist is serving. Foundational experience in herbalism is required.

  • Customized Care

    The Community Herbalist focuses on the unique community the individual herbalist is serving. This includes a customized 13 plant Materia Medica.

  • Foundational Healthcare

    The program covers foundational body systems, basic anatomy and physiology, and the emotional component to community care. There is special focus on collective trauma.

  • Differentials

    This training includes in-depth knowledge about herbal actions and properties, a foundational understanding of thermal energetics, and discernment between Plant Spirit Medicine and physical medicine.

  • Real Life Application

    This certification path explores advanced medicine making, basic formulation and harmonious blending, and tools to track and prepare for the unique needs of a community. Real life application includes greater contextualization within a social justice lens.

Join our 3rd Cohort

  • Thursdays, 3pm-6pm PST via Zoom

  • Two (15 week) sessions with a winter break: September 4, 2025 - December 11, 2025 and February 5, 2026 - May 14, 2026

This certification path includes over 100 hours of instruction, including live class time, optional evening office hours, and recorded materia medica. Outside of instructional hours, students are also expected to account for an additional two hours a week to complete program assignments (for an additional 60 hours of study time).

The classes are also recorded for folks who are unable to attend the live class.

Now and Then Herb School with Sam Roberts and Renée Camila

What The Community Herbalist Covers:

    • Role & Scope of a Community Herbalist

    • Who is your community

    • Bringing people together around healing

    • Weaving webs with other community careworkers

    • Identifying community need

    • Creative resource gathering

    • Community education & engagement

    • Intake skills

    • A & P, energetics, herbal affinities, herbal & lifestyle support for:

    • Nervous

    • Digestive

    • Respiratory

    • Generative

    • Urinary

    • Cardio

    • Musculoskeletal & skin

    • Immune/lymph

    • Different formulation methods: how-to & nuance

    • Herbal actions

    • Thermal nature of plants

    • Dosing strategies

    • Real life application

    • Case Studies

    • Embodied understanding of plant medicine

    • Energetic understanding of plants, herbal actions & imbalances

    • First aid & Urgent care

    • Longer relationships & Prevention within your community

    • Live community consultation

    • Plant spirit medicine primer

    • Energetics of emotional patterns: grief, burnout, crisis, stress, fear

    • How working with emotions can create change in the physical body

    • How systems of power impact our health

    • Intersectionality of our bodies within a community/cultural context

    • Drug/herb interactions

    • Herb contraindications

    • Know your scope

    • Confidentiality

    • Holding space & boundaries

    • Cultural care

    • 20+ plant materia medica

    • Apothecary basics

    • Accessibility of plants

    • Cultural connection with plants

    • Organization, upkeep & inventory

    • Creating & confronting colonial patterns in plant monographs

    • Weight to volume method

    • Health/safety/labels in community herbalism

    • Large batch teas

    • Non-alcohol medicine

    • Essential oils safety

    • Dual extracts/cooked medicine

    • Make medicine together in class

Tuition

Sliding scale tuition is $2450 - $2900, or $250* - $300* per month for 9 months

BIPOC Partial Scholarships are filled. However, we are extending Early Bird Pricing to BIPOC folks with financial need: $2000 total, or $200* per month for 9 months. Please indicate on the application if you’d like to use this option.

*Payment Plan pricing does not include the $200 deposit, required to hold your spot in the program (included in full tuition cost)

Please review our Sliding Scale Information Page to learn more about our particular sliding scale

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