Graduation Year
2026
Document Type
Capstone Project
Research Type
Project
Degree Name
Doctor of Occupational Therapy
Department
Occupational Therapy
Program Chair
Kitsum Li, OTD, OTR/L, CSRS
Faculty Mentor
Karen McCarthy, OTD, OTR/L
Content Expert
Shasta Coltharp, OTR/L
Site Mentor
Shasta Coltharp, OTR/L
Community Partner
Occupational Therapy Training Program - NorCal (OTTP-NorCal)
Abstract
Teachers, caregivers, and health professionals, who are key stakeholders that form a student support triad, each face a range of challenges and barriers that impact their ability to communicate and collaborate with one another, therefore impacting the student and their ability to access and participate in meaningful occupations. Though these challenges and barriers for each stakeholder are well-documented individually, there is limited evidence on solutions to strengthen communication across the triad and solutions that center the student and their engagement in meaningful occupations. This project aims to bridge this gap, despite the greater systemic barriers, by developing remedial solutions that are feasible, practical, and center students’ well-being and meaningful engagement in occupations utilizing a holistic, trauma-informed, strengths-based, and client-centered lens. Three distinct project-level needs assessments, utilizing immersive, structured, and occupation-focused assessment tools, were conducted to inform the development of each intervention. Implementation consisted of three interventions, focusing on equipping each stakeholder with the understanding and tools needed to communicate effectively and thus enhance students’ engagement in their meaningful occupations. The analysis of combined qualitative and quantitative data collected revealed that the implemented interventions unveiled strategies that were perceived as feasible, valuable, and could be meaningfully applied to each stakeholders’ daily lives and routines to enhance communication across the triad and support students’ engagement in their meaningful occupations. Findings suggest that implementation of immediate, practical strategies via a school administrator training, caregiver focus group, clinician/student advocacy toolkit can effectively equip stakeholders with tools needed to enhance their collaboration with each other, despite systemic barriers, and can provide a meaningful contribution towards solving the greater systemic issues that make communication and collaboration difficult. The relationship-based and collaborative processes utilized in this project, which contributed towards positive change, serves as a call to action for occupational therapists to continue to creatively engage with systems to prioritize meaningful engagement in occupation.