Overcoming Barriers: Project Inspire
Faculty Advisor Name
Jeanne Wenos
Department
Department of Health Professions
Description
Marginalized youth benefit from programs that place a strong emphasis on relationship building, social participation, and the development of motor skills. Knowing this information, we are seeking to understand the value of a movement-based mentoring program for marginalized youth. Marginalized youth in this study are defined as individuals with intellectual disabilities and individuals from the refugee population. Project Inspire was offered in 2019-2020 through JMU’s Overcoming Barriers as a collaboration between graduate Occupational Therapy students, a local fitness business owner, and a Program Director from Overcoming Barriers. Each participant in the program was paired with a college-aged mentor who would help them move throughout movement stations for a total of 60 minutes per week intended for 8 weeks but was cut short to 4 weeks due to COVID-19. Formative program assessment evaluated relationship building, skill development and self-efficacy. We recognize the importance of the rich data that was collected during the Overcoming Barriers program, and we are interested in retrospectively studying Project Inspire to determine its value to future program planning for marginalized youth in addition to describing our attempts to include youth from refugee communities.
Overcoming Barriers: Project Inspire
Marginalized youth benefit from programs that place a strong emphasis on relationship building, social participation, and the development of motor skills. Knowing this information, we are seeking to understand the value of a movement-based mentoring program for marginalized youth. Marginalized youth in this study are defined as individuals with intellectual disabilities and individuals from the refugee population. Project Inspire was offered in 2019-2020 through JMU’s Overcoming Barriers as a collaboration between graduate Occupational Therapy students, a local fitness business owner, and a Program Director from Overcoming Barriers. Each participant in the program was paired with a college-aged mentor who would help them move throughout movement stations for a total of 60 minutes per week intended for 8 weeks but was cut short to 4 weeks due to COVID-19. Formative program assessment evaluated relationship building, skill development and self-efficacy. We recognize the importance of the rich data that was collected during the Overcoming Barriers program, and we are interested in retrospectively studying Project Inspire to determine its value to future program planning for marginalized youth in addition to describing our attempts to include youth from refugee communities.
