The Carolina Center for Public Service has awarded a Community Engagement Fellowship to an interdisciplinary team of student researchers from the Department of Allied Health Sciences: Tyson Harmon (PhD student in the Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences), Mei-Ling Lin (PhD student in the Division of Occupational Science), and Gabrielle Scronce (DPT student in the Division of Physical Therapy).
In collaboration with the Triangle Aphasia Project (TAP), the research team will seek to establish a mentoring experience between people with aphasia and graduate students in their three divisions.
“Research has indicated that an important quality of life aspect for people with aphasia is participation in meaningful activities, but that can be difficult to address in therapeutic service-delivery post-stroke,” said Harmon. “We hope to establish an ongoing program whereby people with aphasia can act as mentors to student by sharing their personal recovery experiences and answering student questions. We believe that such a program will be mutually beneficial as it will provide future clinicians with immediate exposure to people with aphasia, while simultaneously giving individuals with aphasia an opportunity to serve students by offering a personalized perspective of disability and rehabilitation.”
Assessments will be conducted pre- and post- participation in the program to measure impact on quality of life across various domains. The program itself will also be evaluated to determine its contributions to educational, therapeutic, and research goals.
The Carolina Center for Public Service’s Community Engagement Fellowship program awards a maximum of five fellowships of up to $2,000 each year to develop and implement engagement or engaged scholarship projects that (1) employ innovative, sustainable approaches to complex social needs and (2) have an academic connection. Returning, full-time graduate students (individuals or teams) at UNC Chapel Hill are eligible to apply.