Community Program Development

I worked with The Living Room (TLR), a women’s shelter in Santa Rosa, to develop a program. I am passionate about maternal health and gave my all to make this program work for TLR’s residents and staff. My group’s program, the Coping with Confidence and Creativity (CCC program) offers TLR residents an opportunity to gain confidence and independence through healthy coping activities and therapeutic activities. For instance, yoga, meditation, journaling, painting, coloring, and reciting positive affirmations. We made 3 booklets: a main, one for the meal preparation in TLR pantry, and one for children. The CCC program was designed to address the concerns stated in our comprehensive needs assessment including all stakeholders of TLR. I had previously done a literature review search on maternal health and women’s health needs which aided the process of providing evidence-based solutions. We had found that especially in women and their children who experience domestic violence, IADLs are much more challenging to complete. This was well reflected in our needs assessment when interviewing residents. Our occupational therapy (OT) lens offered us ease to communicate with the interdisciplinary team, residents when using trauma-informed care and motivational interviewing. We also benefitted from being a 3rd party outsider of TLR to encourage staff to be open about concerns they had. As being OT students we got mentorship from our professor as well as a new perspective on public health and population-driven interventions. This also gave us experience working in collaboration with a community site. The key ability to communicate effectively with collaborators is a skill I refined in this experience.

A challenge we faced during the program development was finding affordable materials as well as navigating learning about TLR during the COVID-19 Pandemic. We included activities that required materials that could be used in other activities and that could be bought in bulk. We ensured the meal preparation booklet only included recipes that did not require a kitchen. As for getting to know TLR staff and residents, another student and I visited the shelter in October of 2020 (socially distanced and masked). This meeting facilitates a better understanding of what was offered at TLR and made connections with the staff.

Though we faced challenges, we did learn and have a meaningful takeaway. We have adapted and been flexible to what materials and activities would best fit this program as well as the ever-changing pandemic. Secondly, we benefitted from the importance of communication and collaboration between all stakeholders. As we only got to visit the site once, we could not survey in person the staff nor implement the pilot ourselves. These are critical parts of the program and thus trained TLR case manager lead on how to implement the program and checked in multiple times and have open discussions on how to improve it.