Project Description
A person's health and wellness can impact their ability to participate in their daily activities and responsibilities. Conversely, the inability to participate in everyday occupations and responsibilities can affect an individual's health and wellness (AOTA, 2020). Occupational therapy identifies eight dimensions of well-being, including: "emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, and spiritual" (AOTA, 2020, p. 1). This allows occupational therapy practitioners to view health and wellness holistically.
One of the most significant disparities encountered by individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) is inadequate access to healthcare and health-promoting services, despite this population’s high co-morbidity rate, and increased risk for significant health concerns (Doerpinghaus et al., 2022). This inequality impacts these individuals’ abilities to learn and participate in health promotion techniques (Videlefsky et al., 2019). Occupational therapy has a unique role in encouraging participation in health-promoting activities among individuals with IDD (Doerpinghaus et al., 2022). Occupational therapy can positively promote health outcomes by advocating for meaningful participation in occupations.
This capstone project aimed to explore the opportunities for growth in the current Project SEARCH health and wellness curriculum taught at 730+ sites internationally to approximately 6,000 interns annually.
Project SEARCH is an organization that serves teenagers and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who are transitioning out of high school. The year-long program provides interns with three internship opportunities to gain skills and daily lessons to provide knowledge regarding health and wellness, relationships, safety, self-advocacy, and many other topics to support them as they transition into adulthood.
Project SEARCH is dedicated to continually improving its curriculum to serve the interns better. The hope is that all interns will obtain full-time competitive integrated employment following their Project SEARCH year.
Supporting Documents
Before starting the doctoral capstone experiential component, I completed a needs assessment and literature to understand the organization’s needs and what research is currently published regarding health and wellness among young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. You can access the documents below.
Mission & Vision
Mission: To promote health and wellness by developing resources for Project SEARCH interns.
Vision: To provide evidence-based resources and activities for Project SEARCH interns to increase their knowledge in health and wellness information.
Meet the Team
Project Leader
The project leader was responsible for the planning, managing, implementing, and disseminating of information related to the doctoral capstone experience. The project leader was also responsible for maintaining communication with all team members to discuss progress, questions, and other factors that arose throughout the 14 weeks.
Expert Mentor
Dr. Cleary supported the capstone project with his expertise in serving this population. He oversaw completion and productivity throughout the capstone project. He supported the doctoral student through bi-weekly meetings and helped to create connections within the organization as needed.
Faculty Mentor
Dr. St. Peters supported the doctoral capstone student by providing her lesson planning, organization, and implementation expertise. Her support was provided through bi-weekly meetings and sharing of additional resources as needed.
Project Outcome Measures
Outcome Measure 1: Doctoral student will disseminate information to transitional program stakeholders on the creation/use of health and wellness resources for the promotion of individual well-being of the interns employed throughout transitional program entities.
Related Learning Outcome 1.1: Doctoral student will demonstrate increased competency in health and wellness for individuals with various abilities as measured by the compilation of resources related to health and wellness.
Related Learning Outcome 1.2: Doctoral student will establish a strategic plan to ensure a structured approach for implementation of the designed course content.
Outcome Measure 2: Doctoral student will develop an action plan for sustainable engagement for teen/young adult program interns continually invested in accessing resources to support their occupational performance and health and wellness efforts.
Related Learning Outcome 2.1: Doctoral student will increase their knowledge of transition programming and design a sustainable collection of transitional health guidance resources to be shared with program administrators, in a secured shared cloud drive, for future application and sustainability for the program intern engagement.
Stage 1: Further Assess the Need
The doctoral capstone student created a questionnaire to obtain instructors' views on the current lessons in addition to other items they are using to teach health and wellness topics. The survey contained questions regarding their input on where lessons could be expanded upon to meet interns' needs better. It was sent out to 566 Project SEARCH instructors across the United States, and 208 responses were collected. (36.7% response rate)
Through completion of the questionnaire, the doctoral capstone student was able to identify the three most frequent themes identified through qualitative content analysis of the questionnaire results. The three most frequently discussed themes were a) activity level, b) self-care, and c) mental health/stress. Instructors identified the following areas as topics that had the opportunity for growth.
Following analysis of the questionnaire, the doctoral capstone student and mentors discussed options for new lesson plans. Expanding the health and wellness curriculum, specifically regarding mental health/stress, was identified as a need that occupational therapy effectively impacts.
Stage 2: Compile and Create Lesson Plan Resources
The doctoral capstone student worked with a Nationwide Children's Hospital team to provide an emotions and coping skills at work lesson for Project SEARCH interns. The lesson includes providing the interns with the vocabulary and knowledge to identify emotions as "comfortable" or "uncomfortable," understanding signs of different emotions within their own bodies, and the opportunity to try nine different coping strategies and identify if they are effective for them.
In addition to the lesson plan and supporting documents, the doctoral capstone student and Nationwide Children's Hospital team collaborated on creating videos guiding interns through each coping strategy. You can view them here:
Stage 3: Disseminate Lesson Plan and Establish Implementation Plan
Upon completion of the lesson plan, the doctoral capstone student shared the final documents with the Project SEARCH team to support the implementation of the lesson in Project SEARCH classrooms. The doctoral capstone student also established a plan of action to help the process and delegate responsibilities of the Project SEARCH team after completing the doctoral capstone project. This plan will support the lesson plan being a) advertised at the Project SEARCH Annual Conference, b) uploaded to the Project SEARCH portal for instructors to access and use for the 2023 school year and beyond, and c) taught at the newly created Project SEARCH instructor BootCamp for new instructors.
Reflection
Impact on the Profession
This doctoral capstone project has continued to show the strengths of the field of occupational therapy when addressing health and wellness. The implications of this doctoral project include providing effective coping strategies to approximately 6,000 Project SEARCH interns annually. These coping strategies and additional knowledge on emotions help to create a strong foundation for emotional regulation and coping in the workplace to set Project SEARCH interns up for success as they enter the workforce upon graduation.
Impact on my OT Direction
This experience has provided me with increased knowledge and clinical practice skills to better equip me for entering the profession. I have also gained the knowledge and experience of completing quality improvement within an organization, which will help me further assess my interventions and company outcomes.
Contact Project Leader
Email: allisonritter2023@gmail.com
References
American Occupational Therapy Association. (2020). Occupational therapy in the promotion of health and well-being. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 74, 7403420010. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2020.743003
Doerpinghaus, A., Hladik, L., Satterlund, E., Bentley, C., Kastern, E., St. John, B., Ausderau, K. K. (2022). Collaborative health advocacy for health promotion for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. SIS Quarterly Practice Connections, 7(1), 15-17. https://www.aota.org/publications/sis-quarterly/developmental-disabilities-sis/ddsis-2-22
Project SEARCH (n.d.). https://www.projectsearch.us/
Videlefsky, A. S., Reznik, J. M., Nodvin, J. T., Heiman, H. J. (2019). Commentary: Addressing health disparities in adults with developmental disabilities. Ethnicity & Disease, 29(2), 355-358. https://doi.org/10.18865/ed.29.S2.355
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