Owl Be Your OT

The journal article I chose was a study based on occupation based groups for low-income urban youths. It was a qualitative study that looked at after school youth groups that allowed kids to talk about any anger they may have and how they can manage that anger and turn it into something positive. These youth groups also allowed the kids to choose the leisure activities they wanted to participate in, which was shown to create a more positive and interactive atmosphere that increased the mood of the kids. These groups allowed the participants to engage in meaningful activities and interact with each other in a way that might not be typical or normal on a day to day basis. The study was phenomenological and took information from the perspectives of the individual group members. The groups were weekly and they involved children attending religious, inner-city school. The study was supervised by a certified occupational therapist and 22 occupational therapy students. Seventy kids, ranging

On Monday, March 5th, I attended a meeting for family members of people who are alcoholics. I thought this was an interesting meeting to go to because it was not based on the person who is an alcoholic, but rather the family members who are effected by the alcoholism. Sometimes, I think it is easy to forget that alcoholism doesn't just effect that person, but also the people they are associated with. The group started out with an introduction of what the group meeting would be about. It was a much larger group than I had expected; I was expecting around 5-10 people, but there were about 30 people. It was held in a parlor room in a church, therefore there was plenty of room to accommodate everyone.  Going into a room with 30 or so people was extremely intimidating because I did not feel that I belonged. I know that I got some stares from people since I was a new face in the group. As the group session went on, I relaxed and became more comfortable, and at the end of the meeting s

Description/ Interpretation/Outcome   A week before I was supposed to facilitate my group on child care, I met with 2 of my peers to discuss what we would be doing in our groups. We talked about our ice breakers and our ideas for our activities. When we met, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do yet because I was going back and forth and couldn't make a decision. The most useful information I gained was from Annese. At first, I thought about doing something such as helping people change diapers, but when she told me that that was what she was thinking about doing, I felt that I needed to change my activity to maybe appeal to a different audience. This was probably best because I didn't want to do the same activity as her, and I felt that I might want to appeal to people who are thinking about having kids rather than people who have already had kids. In the end, I'm glad that I changed my activity because it worked out better for my group. I'm glad that I got to d

Description On Friday, February 23rd, I facilitated a group session by my self. The group theme was "life skills" and I lead my group in a discussion about child care. I began the group by introducing myself, along with explaining what the session would consist of, how long it would be, the general rules of respect, and I also had the group members introduce themselves before beginning the ice breaker. The ice breaker required the group members to think of words to describe how they would be as future parents and it had them putting themselves into a specific category of a particular parenting style they believe they would follow. Afterwards, everyone in the group was given a survey to fill out, which would give them a good idea of where they were in their knowledge of becoming a new parent. I then went over the answers and had everyone share what they put for the bonus question, which was guessing the cost of taking care of a child from birth to 17 years old. After going ov

Description   Cameron, Chelsea, and I lead our group that was based around the concept of time management. We began the group meeting by introducing ourselves and talking a little bit about what we would be addressing. After a mini ice breaker, we moved into our official ice breaker than consisted of each group member going around the circle and stating things that they think might be a waste of time and things they do that are considered good time management skills. Afterwards, we did an activity that involved each group member using imaginary money in the amount of $86,400 and converting it into things in life they want to "spend" it on. We spent the remaining time of the group meeting discussing what the group members used their money for and the overall purpose of the activity and time management, in general.  Interpretation For me, the most significant part was during the $86,400 activity. After going around to everyone in the group, it was very eye opening to hea

Multiple Sclerosis-Breea's Story  For my last neuro note, I wanted to watch something that had to do with a personal story and reflection. In class, we watched a personal YouTube video that was about a young girl that had Myasthenia Gravis. That video was very touching to me and it made me remember that life can really change in a moment. With this video in mind, I looked for a similar video that had to do with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). I came across a video also about a young girl who had her life changed in a matter of hours. I chose this particular video because I wanted to see how she would overcome her diagnosis and live a normal life.  Breea was a normal girl who was living out her life like teenagers should. She was a high school student and a cheerleader at her school. At just 18 years old, she was diagnosed with severe onset Multiple Sclerosis, in December of her senior year. She was completely paralyzed on her left side and it all happened within a 24 hour time