Occupational Therapy Reflection

Now that you have completed your experience, what are your general feelings and thoughts about it?
It was exciting to represent the occupational therapy department by volunteering at San Pedro Commons. What surprised me most was the amount of time it took before we (a team of four SJSU occupational therapy students) were able to orient ourselves, interact with the residents, and start the interventions. The first four weeks we mainly dealt with logistics, learned about the MidPen organization, and observed the location and environment of the residents. After this, we were able to meet the residents and establish report.
The residents were a diverse group of older adults coming from different cultural backgrounds. They had a variety of personal
Before meeting the residents the initial identification of the problem was addressed by making our own observations at the location and by talking to David Lee, the program manager for the senior services program of MidPen Housing, and Zahira Pena, the social services assistant. Both had some insights in what they considered a need for the San Pedro Commons residents. David Lee discussed similar MidPen residences and the programs previously implemented at those locations, while Zahira shared her thoughts about the local residents. To investigate a sense of the real problem and to discover the needs of the primary stakeholders’ two surveys were introduced. The residents were asked to: answer a single page PNF Interest Inventory survey, and to draw in a “Dream Courtyard/Building” on a map resembling the San Pedro Commons building and courtyard. The information gathered through the collected data, the advice from stakeholders, and the observations of our team allowed us to design and implement the intervention plan for the following