Capstone Process & Reflections

During the fall semester of 2024, I made a lot of progress toward the completion of my capstone project. Around midterm, I had my initial meeting with a capstone site and chose to partner with Chesterwood Retirement Community for my capstone project! This is a CareSpring facility that provides independent and assisted living services to older adults in the West Chester Township area of Cincinnati, Ohio. I was excited to partner with this site as my site mentor shared the same passion for increasing her client's quality of life and well-being as I did. After the initial meeting, we determined that the overall goal we wanted the project to target was to improve resident participation and engagement in OT-based services. 

Following further conversations and meetings, my site mentor and I narrowed the focus of the capstone project to implement some type of program that would improve mental health and leisure participation for older adults in independent living at Chesterwood. During a lecture about long-term care in our older adults class, I discovered the Circle of Friends program. This program is a 12-week group intervention for older adults that targets loneliness and has been shown to improve feelings of depression and loneliness and increase older adults' social networks through group sessions where older adults can participate in meaningful activities.  My site mentor and I thought this program would be perfect for residents at Chesterwood, especially those who may not attend a lot of activities or have just moved to the facility. 

After finding a site and a program to implement, I began the initial process of drafting my IRB submission which hopefully will be submitted in the spring of 2025. Additionally, I drafted and received final approval on my Capstone Project Proposal from both my site mentor and my Doctoral Capstone Coordinator and had my Memorandum of Understanding signed off on by all involved parties! All that is left to do is submit my IRB and begin planning the activities to implement for the Circle of Friends group sessions at Chesterwood. 

I am so excited to start my capstone project next fall and feel very accomplished with the amount of work I got done to finalize my project this semester! The main thing I noticed about myself this semester was my personal growth in communication and taking the initiative to self-direct my learning. I gained a lot of confidence in sending emails as well as scheduling and leading meetings as I met with my site mentor every other week. I always sent follow-up emails after meetings with additional paperwork or information we talked about during the meeting. I also had multiple email exchanges with the creator of the Circle of Friends Program out of Saint Louis University and was able to gain a lot of information about the program from these exchanges. Additionally, I made sure to schedule meetings and frequently contact my DCC whenever questions arose about assignments or necessary paperwork which helped to make the process of finalizing my capstone much smoother. 

As for my skills in initiative and self-directed learning, I gained more confidence in these areas by doing a lot more research into lots of different potential programs to use at Chesterwood. I used information from my initial meetings with my capstone mentor to decide if programs I found in the research would be a good fit at Chesterwood rather than presenting my site mentor with everything I found and making her decide if it would work or not. I think these skills will be very valuable in my future career as a practitioner especially if I am tasked with leading or developing new programs or initiatives in my workplace.