Embedded Files
In my final semester of coursework in the DUC OT program, I took a course on program development. In this course, I got to practice serving as an OT in a consultative role, and for an organization/population instead of the typical direct service delivery with an individual or group. I had the wonderful opportunity to partner with the university’s own Student Success Center, where I had also spent four years as a student employee. This partnership was the first step in an effort to advance the presence of student-directed OT services on campus.
Skills Developed
That I will Use as an Entry-Level OT
Skills Developed
That I will Use as an Entry-Level OT
- OT consultation
- Grant writing
- Program development
- Marketing
Challenges Overcome
Challenges Overcome
Developing a program…
Developing a program…
- During a global pandemic
- Without a budget
- Self-sustaining
- Fully virtual and still interactive
- Finding client-centeredness while serving an entire population
The Community Partner
The Community Partner
The Student Success Center (SSC) is a student-facing office at the heart of DUC that aims to support students and get them connected to the resources they need to succeed and thrive. The SSC offers services such as accessibility and disability services, career development, academic advising, tutoring, digital portfolio support, peer mentoring, and integrative coaching. Integrative coaches support students individually and teach courses that support student success, and were our target audience for utilizing the program we created with students through referral or embedding into their course curriculum.
The Program
The Program
The problem apparent across the Dominican student community that this program was designed to address is the overwhelming levels of stress and anxiety students are facing in regards to social skills and social engagement. In a 2021 campus-wide survey, graduate and undergraduate students alike reported several social engagement activities as significant stressors in their life (Ozeroff, 2021). As social engagement is not intuitively stressful, this data indicates how our student body is experiencing barriers to their ability to socialize that is increasing their stress levels.
This program was thoughtfully designed by graduate-level occupational therapy students to meet the needs of our peers. We designed the program not only to gain professional experience in program development, but also to share our developing OT expertise with our own community to target the shared aforementioned challenges. We intend to accomplish this through our program, which exists as a website full of handcrafted self-guided modules, worksheets, video resources, self-questionnaires, and more. This archive of tools targets coping strategies and stress management related to socialization, and overcoming access barriers to social engagement. These objectives are rooted in the expressed challenges of students, and the resources are developed by members of the target population and are Dominican-specific for maximum transference to the user’s real daily life.
Report abuse