Document Type
Presentation
Publication Date
12-2021
Abstract
The Sunshine Foundation is a charity dedicated to providing dream-like experiences to children and families with severe physical disabilities with the hopes to foster optimism, independence and hope, and improve mental health. However, they lack empirical evidence to illustrate the positive long-term impacts that their wishes provide. Thus, our main goal was to generate quantifiable data to highlight the positive impacts of the program, in order to improve donor interest, raise awareness, and ultimately be able to reach more children nation-wide. We intended to do this through a literature review and present concrete statistical findings through a multi-media deliverable in the form of an infographic. The Sunshine Foundation conducts pre- and post-assessment surveys for their participating children and guardians. They provided the results of these surveys in the form of raw ordinal data, and we performed statistical analysis to detect significant changes in the responses. The results were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test to determine if the dream-like experience elicited a significant change (α=0.05). We represented our findings in the form of pie charts and incorporated them into the infographic. In addition to the graphs, we added several relevant statistics and quotes that would appeal to potential donors and emphasize the significance and impact of Sunshine's work. The literature review included information regarding three different topics that would provide evidence supporting the long-term impact of Sunshine. The topics addressed were the association between severe physical disabilities and increased risk of mental health issues, the efficacy of pre-existing wish-granting programs, and alternative psychosocial interventions for children with severe disabilities