Capstone

What is a capstone?

A capstone is a culmination of knowledge that you have gained in this program.

It is a major paper in one area of your interest in the human services field. It is expected that in a capstone paper a student is able to integrate what s/he has learned in the course of studying in the program in a variety of coursed such as Program Evaluation, Case Management, Internship, etc.

The paper must be well written, organized, and thorough and must display critical thinking and the ability to evaluate and reflect.

I believe that an appropriate capstone in a Master of Science in Human Services program should consist of three major parts:

1. A review of the literature in the chosen area.

2. Programs in Connecticut which serve this population (4-5 programs) or agencies.

3. Evaluation of one of the programs and your recommendations. Apply your knowledge of what you have learned in the Program Evaluation course.

Your review of the literature must be thorough enough of an overview to position the reader in the chosen area.

This paper is considered to be equal to a thesis. Therefore I expect that you will use a minimum of 12 references. It should be at least 25 pages in length. The first half of your paper should cover the literature review, and the second half should cover available programs which serve the particular population you have selected, followed by the last 4-5 pages to include your program evaluation of program only.

Acceptable sources to use:

1. Professional Journals

2. Textbooks

3. Dissertations

4. Government reports

5. Organization reports

(Popular magazines such as “Psychology Today” and newspapers are not approved sources)

Quotations should be minimized and, if necessary to include them, they should be referenced according to the most recent APA (American Psychology Association) Guidelines for publications. Just a reminder, any sentence or paragraph using the language of the source without appropriate reference to the source is considered plagiarism, which is not acceptable.

A list of possible topics follows. You do not need to select one of them; these are just seeds for thought. You can choose your own area of interest. However, the topic should be approved by me before moving forward.

· Domestic Violence

· Elderly

· School Dropouts

· Teen pregnancy

· The mentally challenged

· AIDS

· Foster children

· Youth offenders

· Veterans

It is my expectation that in a Masters level Capstone, which is equal to a thesis, there will be no grammatical or spelling errors.

Meeting/Class Schedule:

August 25: Meeting with Mr. John McCann to empower students to navigate the internet and be able to retrieve articles from Psych Info, Psych Bulletin, etc. Meeting with me for approval of topic.

September 1st: Meeting with me with a complete bibliography (minimum of twelve

References) and an outline of the paper.

September 8th Email progress

September 15th I expect to meet with you and receive the completed section of the

Literature Review (12 to 15 pages) no later than September22nd

September 22th Email progress

September 29th I will return the Literature review with my comments and expect to receive

the second and third sections of your Capstone paper.

October 6th I will return to you the second and third sections of your Capstone with my

Comments in order for you to finalize your capstone.

October13th Final Capstone with no more revisions.