Welcome back to caring for others. I want to say a little bit more about the structure and requirements of this specialization. As you know, it breaks down the subject matter into three courses, suffering and the human condition, thinking about care, and the challenges of modern caregiving. You can take these courses in whatever sequence suits you best. The specialization is designed to be interlocking. It's also greater than the sum of its parts, because it enables you to synthesize what you have learned in the form of a capstone project. The capstone is the culmination of everything you learned. It is a project meant to be relevant to your situation that you can share with an employer, a professional program you are applying to or people who are close to you. It could also help you decide where to focus your energies and trying to care for others. In particular, it gives you an opportunity to demonstrate that you have learned how to identify and fill gaps in an existing care system. And that is an especially valuable skill to demonstrate, not only because caregivers are expected to do more with less. But because according to recent surveys of employers, the number one skill in demand today is problem solving. To prove your ability to solve the problem of suffering through acts of care, the capstone project has you apply a simple, yet very useful tool called the impact gaps Canvas. This tool was developed by Daniela Pappy Thornton, during her time as Deputy Director of the School Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University. Specifically you are to type a three page double spaced answer to each of the following sets of questions raised by the impact gaps Canvas. The first set of questions asks, what is the form of human suffering that you wish to understand? What is it history? What are the social, economic, corporate, environmental, cultural and political forces that cause and perpetuate it? Which groups are affected by it? And what is the size and scope of the impact? The second set of questions asks, who is already working to solve this problem and care for the people it affects? What are they doing? What efforts have been tried or are being tried and what are the different models and approaches? What has worked and what has not? How are some of these efforts linked to one another? What networks and resources exist that could further the solutions landscape? What has happened in the past and could happen in the future? And the final set of questions asks, what is missing from solutions landscape? What are some remaining opportunities to enhance care? Consider policy changes, information sharing, behavior change efforts, movement building, research, market opportunities, missing links, or other actionable responses. What role do you see for future private, public, and social sector interventions or collaborations? What are the lessons you have learned from researching this issue? How were your assumptions challenged? And if you had more time, what would you research next? I have provided an example of a similar project using the impact gaps Canvas, I think will help you with yours. When you have completed your nine page capstone project, you will upload and receive feedback from the Coursera Community. What you do with your project afterwards, is entirely up to you. But my hope is that you will share it with someone or some group who could benefit from what you have learned. Again, an employer, an admissions officer, or family and friends. A word of caution. While it might be tempting to use your capstone project to address a form of suffering that exists on a large scale, such as hunger throughout the world. It is normally best for the purpose of this specialization to limit your project to a problem that is more local and manageable in nature. That will make it easier for you to demonstrate the skills you have learned to others. As I mentioned, the capstone project is based on a tool called the impact gaps Canvas, develop by Daniela Pappy Thornton. It turns out Daniela, recently spoke to one of my classes about this tool. And so I want to share with you some of her thoughts about the impact gaps Canvas she created and how it can be applied.
