An Occupational Therapy Approach to Education for Foster Parents

Abstract

The focus of this project is to enhance current programming for foster parent pre-licensure education courses in San Diego, California. This capstone project focused on the preferred learning styles of foster parents and utilized adult learning theories to create suggestions to enhance the current pre-licensure class curriculum. Data collected during verbal interviews with foster parents helped guide the suggestions to enhance the current curriculum. Utilizing specific occupational therapy group strategies, occupational therapists can help enhance education for foster parents by increasing the saliency of the learning material. The increased saliency facilitates a deeper understanding of the material and increases the retention of knowledge amongst participants. The capstone project will explore how occupational therapists can help enhance the current pre-licensure curriculum for foster parents to be more inclusive of different learning styles.