Fieldwork I Service-Learning Reflection

For my service-learning project, I decided to make a money kit for cognitive skills. At first, I didn't think that this project would take me that long, but after all the time spent discussing, researching, planning, driving, purchasing, and laminating all the money and images, I realized that it took me 10 hours to complete this project. I know it doesn't seem like it requires a lot of time, but I wanted to make sure that I included all the items that are necessary to complete this kit and it could be useful as an assessment for an intervention. I made sure to write the instructions and to include ways on how to grade up or down the activity for the money kit. That way they can get an idea as to where the client is at with their cognitive skills. This project was great because I didn't spend a lot of money because I have a printer at home, I was able to photocopy bills that I had. I ended up finding laminated paper and the plastic kit at Wal-Mart. Also, for my coins I recycled water bottles lids, and by the end, this project ending up costing over 10 dollars for this kit.

   After my second week of fieldwork, I decided what to do after spending time in the neurological department with clients who had a head injury and for clients with dementia. When I first mentioned this idea of creating a money kit, my supervisor was so excited because they only have one money kit and now, by having two, it would be much easier to get the kit on her way when visiting the client, instead on going to a different floor to find the other kit.

   This project is going to help not only the patient with cognitive skills, but also the department in general. This is going to allow the department to test patients and figure out if they have a deficit in that area. The main purpose of this kit is to use as an intervention for clients who had a head injury and for clients with dementia. However, I used images of common items for grocery shopping and photocopied real bills to help the client with memory and processing information.

   This project taught me a lot, especially on understanding more about cognition. It is so incredible that you can make anything meaningful for an intervention. I feel like making this money kit would be helpful in the way that money is something that we need as a human to buy our needs. And by not having the ability to know how to manage money it would make it difficult to survive, and people could take advantage of that, especially with older people.

  I feel really good about the project. I felt like I put a good amount of time and effort into it, and I'm proud of how it turned out. I believe it is something that would make an impact on the clients that I had the opportunity to work with. I was pretty sad when I finished my last day of fieldwork, but knowing that I left them with something they will be able to use made it a little bit easier to leave. Fieldwork and this service-learning project was an eye-opening experience for me and made me feel ready to continue learning.