(E)valuating the sustainability of final year occupational therapy student community projects

Abstract

Community Engagement (CE) has been incorporated into tertiary education with growing emphasis. Service learning as one aspect of CE has been included in various departments at the University of Pretoria (UP) since 2005. The Department of Occupational Therapy at UP therefore also found it appropriate to adapt the CE curriculum to incorporate service-learning principles. One outcome of Service Learning in the Department of Occupational Therapy was the planning, implementation and evaluation of final-year student community projects. Unfortunately many of these projects have been unsustained and therefore the process called for evaluation. The researcher of this study evaluated these projects in a qualitative manner, using the Appreciate Inquiry approach to guide the research questions. Content data analysis was used to formulate themes, categories and sub-categories. The themes that emerged were 1) Project meaningfulness, 2) Suitable support structure, 3) Maintenance and 4) Growth. The researcher made recommendations for the curriculum and for community projects to be more sustainable.