Final+Proposal

Nursing Homes Maggie Harkins **Background:** The reason I am working on this project is to enlighten others about the pros and con’s of a nursing home, but mostly the bright side of nursing homes. I am also working on this project so I can learn about nursing homes due to the fact that I volunteer at one and I think it’s very interesting. Also, in the near future I would like to help nursing homes plan extra curricular events that will keep elders active. I am seeking to answer why nursing homes are necessary to our society and families too. **Vision:** Once this project is completed, I hope that it will make a difference to my classmates and even me. My expectation is to teach others that when deciding whether or not to send someone close to you to a nursing home, that it isn’t wrong, it is actually a great place for one to be. Also, I hope to educate everyone why and how nursing homes are good for our society. I plan on teaching my classmates about my driving question by stating reasons why nursing homes are beneficial to our society and individual families, and also by giving examples. By doing so, I am going to the nursing home I volunteer at and interviewing some staff and also some residents. My final presentation will look like a lot of statistics, videos of the residents I interviewed and also examples. **Products:** To show that I have met my goal, I will first have my presentation. This presentation will include all of my goals by using Saint Joseph ’s Villa as an example. My second project will be my hands on project. I hope to create a project that will teach the entire school and hopefully raise money for a certain nursing home who wants to provide their residents with good care but don’t have the money to do so. One nursing home I was informed about by my grandmother is Saint Ignatius in Philadelphia. **Task Analysis:** In order for my project to be completed successfully, I will need examples from nursing homes covering different topics, and also maybe even families who have made the decision to send their loved one to a nursing home. When interviewing families I should ask them why they made this decision; what did they think about when selecting a home; after making their decision, why did they choose that specific one; etc. __Timeline:__ **10/29:** Finish finding all online sources, book sources, databases, etc. **11/4:** Secondary sources which include interviews of residents, nurses, and family members need to be done. **11/13:** Idea for hands on project needs to be finalized and ran by teacher (a few days ahead of this date). **12/16:** PowerPoint should be revised and finalized. **12/16-1/12:** Practice PowerPoint for presentation. **1/13:** Present all my findings plus my hands on project and how successful it was. Additional information and research that will be necessary to complete my research are the interviews and also graphs, etc. found in books or online databases showing different statistics over the years. **Mentor** **and Topic Experts Analysis:** My topic expert is mom, Mary Harkins along with my mentor who is Mark Heigh. I chose my mom as my topic expert for she is critical with my work and studies. Being my mom, she doesn’t mind telling me things are wrong or I should do this. Also, my mom is a nurse so when I read articles about medical aspects of nursing homes, etc. she can help me out. I picked Mark as my mentor because he is one of my good friends. Another benefit of Mark being my mentor is that he is the same class as me. This helps because we can talk about things being due, and how they are supposed to be done. My mom has taught me what she knows about nursing homes because she knows people who do different works within nursing homes, sees and hears various things from people at work and also has experiences due to the fact that our grand mom, her mother-in-law, is in a nursing home. Mark helps me stay concentrated and also assists me with any questions on assignments I have. Every time I learn something new, I usually tell my mom about it, but when I finish working on an assignment I let my mom review it and give me her opinions on it. As for Mark, I talk to him every class and every night after class assessing what we did in class and what is due the next class. **Conclusion:** The personal importance of this project is that it is helping me prepare for projects that will come in the future, especially in college. Skills necessary to complete this are time management, the ability to gather information, and also the skill to put it all together and present it. One main strength I have is making sure I spend enough time on what I need to and not a lot on what is not as necessary. A weakness I have is finding information is essential and information that is not as crucial.
 * Senior Seminar Formal Proposal **
 * Goals: **
 * Change the minds of those who are contemplating nursing homes for a loved one
 * Alter those who vision nursing homes as a place to go to die
 * Prove that volunteering at a nursing home not only makes the residents day, but makes you leave feeling good about yourself
 * Establish that the elderly residing in nursing homes are provided with proper medical care
 * Show that the staff of nursing homes supply the residents with activities that keep them active
 * Illustrate that residents have the ability to have more day-to-day decision making but are still supervised and safe