| Course | HD599 Master's Capstone in Health Education and Promotion |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 7 |
| Paper type | Competency evidence portfolio |
| Length | About 1,130 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Health Education |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HD599 Unit 7
Executed or Designed: A Unit 7 Competency Evidence Portfolio From a Volunteer Fire District's Decontamination Capstone
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
HD599: Master's Capstone in Health Education and Promotion
Unit 7 Competency Evidence Portfolio
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Kessling Valley Fire Protection District, its artifacts, members and figures are composite; the competency framework and the sources quoted inside entries are real.
Reviewer's Guide
This portfolio is written for a reviewer outside the project who has about twenty minutes. Every entry follows the same format: the Area of Responsibility and competency from the 2020 framework (National Commission for Health Education Credentialing [NCHEC], 2020), a quoted passage from the artifact, where the artifact sits in the capstone file, a label, and a closing line headed "What this does not show."
Two labels are used. Executed means the work happened at the district and left a record a reviewer could inspect. Designed means the work exists as a plan, draft or script but has not yet been carried out. Areas appear in the order the work happened, so the reviewer meets the evidence in the sequence the district experienced it. Seven of the eight areas carry entries; the empty one is named at the end.
Area 1: Assessment of Needs and Capacity
Entry 1. Competency: assess priority populations' needs. Excerpt from the barrier survey summary: "Of 41 members who answered, 29 said they had no spare hood, so a clean hood after a fire meant going without one until the dirty one was washed." Location: Unit 3 appendix C. Label: executed. What this does not show: why the 17 members who did not respond skip decontamination, if they do.
Entry 2. Competency: analyze existing data. Excerpt from the baseline review: "Before rollout, the brushing box was checked on 19 forms in 141." Location: Unit 2, problem statement. Label: executed. What this does not show: how gear traveled home before rollout, because the old form had no field for it.
Area 2: Planning
Entry 3. Competency: develop goals and objectives. Excerpt from the proposal's aims: "Raise the share of fires at which volunteers brush, bag and swap hoods, within a single term." Location: Unit 2, purpose and aims. Label: executed, as a written plan approved by the chief. What this does not show: whether the aim was the right size, which the Unit 6 seminar later questioned.
Entry 4. Competency: select or design strategies. Excerpt from the methodology defense, in its framework section: barriers are sorted into three bins, ability, chance and will, and each is answered by the part of the plan built for it. The matching follows the behavior change wheel (Michie et al., 2011). Location: Unit 3, framework. Label: executed. What this does not show: whether matching barriers to components changed behavior more than an unmatched approach would have.
Area 3: Implementation
Entry 5. Competency: deliver health education. Excerpt from the execution report: drills of twelve minutes ran at Stations 1, 2 and 3, rehearsing the four steps in guideline order. Location: Unit 5, delivered against plan. Label: executed. What this does not show: what members retained a month later.
Entry 6. Competency: monitor implementation. Excerpt from the deviation log: the chief approved a variant for nights below freezing, with no water, a dry brush, skin wipes and immediate bagging. Location: Unit 5, entry 3. Label: executed. What this does not show: whether the variant removes as much contamination as wet decontamination, which no study tested.
Area 4: Evaluation and Research
Entry 7. Competency: collect and analyze data. Excerpt: brushing on scene was recorded at 27 exposures in 44 after rollout, against roughly one in eight before it. Location: Unit 5, early figures. Label: executed. What this does not show: that the intervention caused the change, since the design has no comparison group.
Entry 8. Competency: assess data quality. Excerpt: at the three observed fires, officer and observer matched on 17 exposures out of 19, and the two mismatches both favored the form. Location: Unit 5, agreement section. Label: executed. What this does not show: agreement at fires where no observer was present.
Area 5: Advocacy
Entry 9. Competency: engage decision makers. Excerpt from the board deck: "Adopt the Post-Fire Exposure Reduction guideline, fund forty more hoods at $5,200 now, and place a second gear extractor in next year's capital plan." Location: Unit 9 draft. Label: designed. The presentation is scheduled for the board's next meeting and has not taken place. What this does not show: any decision by the board.
Area 6: Communication
Entry 10. Competency: tailor messages to the audience. Excerpt from the drill card: "Brush. Wipe neck, jaw, hands. Swap hood. Bag it. Trunk, not seat." Location: Unit 8, appendix A. Label: executed; the card is laminated and on every engine. What this does not show: whether members read it or follow it from memory.
Entry 11. Competency: write clearly for a lay audience. Excerpt from the guideline: "No hood goes into a home washing machine." Location: Unit 8, procedure. Label: designed, pending the chief's final adoption of the revised guideline. What this does not show: compliance.
Area 7: Leadership and Management
Entry 12. Competency: manage resources. Excerpt from the deviation log: the twenty hoods that arrived went straight onto the engines and into the Station 1 spare shelf, without waiting for the rest. Location: Unit 5, entry 1. Label: executed. What this does not show: good planning; the same entry records that the backorder was foreseeable.
Area Left Empty
Ethics and Professionalism carries no entry. The project's review status and the writer's disclosure of the insider role are documented in Unit 3, but neither is a competency performed so much as a condition met, and claiming them as evidence would stretch the framework. The area is left empty rather than filled with a weak entry.
Withdrawn Claim
The Unit 2 proposal claimed that the capstone would evidence outcome evaluation under Evaluation and Research. That claim is withdrawn. Outcome evaluation would require a measure of reduced exposure, not just of practices, and the methodology defense explained why biomarkers stay out. Controlled-fire studies measured what brushing and wipes remove (Fent et al., 2017); this project measured whether members decontaminated, not how much contamination remained. The entries under Area 4 are process evaluation and are labeled as such.
Withdrawing a claim in writing costs the portfolio one entry and buys it credibility for the other twelve, because a reviewer who sees an honest withdrawal is more likely to trust what remains.
Attestation
I attest that each executed entry describes work I carried out at the Kessling Valley Fire Protection District and that each excerpt is quoted from the artifact named.
Student signature and date: ______________________
Site supervisor (fire chief) signature and date: ______________________
References
Fent, K. W., Alexander, B., Roberts, J., Robertson, S., Toennis, C., Sammons, D., Bertke, S., Kerber, S., Smith, D., & Horn, G. (2017). Contamination of firefighter personal protective equipment and skin and the effectiveness of decontamination procedures. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, 14(10), 801-814. https://doi.org/10.1080/15459624.2017.1334904
Michie, S., van Stralen, M. M., & West, R. (2011). The behaviour change wheel: A new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions. Implementation Science, 6, 42. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-6-42
National Commission for Health Education Credentialing. (2020). Areas of responsibility, competencies and sub-competencies for health education specialists 2020. https://www.nchec.org
Reading the HD 599 Unit 7 instructions
In the portfolio unit, students assemble evidence that their capstone work demonstrates professional competencies. Prompts usually ask for each claimed competency, the artifact that shows it, an excerpt or description, and a short rationale, sometimes with a site supervisor's attestation. Write for a reviewer who has not followed the project and has limited time. Explain any labels before the evidence. Quote short passages rather than pointing to files, so the evidence can be judged on the page. Distinguish work carried out from work only planned, and do not claim an activity that has not yet happened. State what each excerpt does not prove. If an earlier claim from the proposal no longer holds, withdraw it openly. Avoid any suggestion that coursework counts toward a credentialing exam. Ten to twelve pages is common.
How this HD599 Unit 7 example is built
A one-page guide defines executed and designed and explains that areas follow the order of the work. Twelve entries then appear in a fixed format. The assessment entries quote the survey finding that 29 of 41 respondents had no spare hood and the baseline count from the old form. Planning entries cite the aim and the matching of barriers to plan parts. Implementation, evaluation and leadership entries draw on the execution report, with the agreement check and the hood shortage stated candidly. The advocacy entry is labeled designed, pending the board. One area is left empty with a reason. The withdrawn-claims page explains that measuring practices is process evaluation, which the highlighted sentence presents as a gain in credibility, and the attestation leaves the supervisor's line blank.
HD599 Unit 7 rubric: what earns full points
Portfolio rubrics in HD599 tend to concentrate points on the quality of evidence: whether each excerpt actually demonstrates the competency claimed, at the level the framework assigns. Accuracy of labeling is a second criterion, since blurring planned and completed work is penalized. Reflection on the limits of each entry adds to the score. Organization matters because reviewers compare entries quickly, so a consistent format helps. Alignment with the proposal's competency claims is checked, and an honest withdrawal can earn credit rather than lose it. Professional presentation, the attestation and correct citation of the framework close the rubric. Portfolios that claim every area, or that describe evidence vaguely without quoting it, tend to score lower on the evidence criterion.
HD599 Unit 7 help: mistakes that cost points
Portfolios are weakened most by claims that run ahead of the work, such as advocacy credited for a meeting not yet held. Students also point to whole documents instead of quoting the passage that shows the skill, which forces the reviewer to search. Another weakness is filling every area, including those the project never touched, with thin entries. Limits of evidence are rarely stated. Some portfolios drift into exam preparation language, which programs ask students to avoid. Proposal claims that failed are quietly dropped rather than withdrawn. If you are unsure which of your capstone products can support which competency, send the products and your proposal, and we can help you assemble entries that a reviewer will accept.
Get an HD599 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Gather the artifacts your capstone has produced, mark which were actually carried out at the site, and add whichever competency framework your program follows, with the HD599 Unit 7 prompt and rubric. A free first custom sample, ready in 24-48h, labels every claim executed or designed and quotes the evidence a reviewer needs. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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HD599 Unit 7 questions, answered
Does a competency evidence portfolio count toward CHES or MCHES eligibility?
The portfolio should make no such claim. Eligibility and examination requirements are set by the credentialing body, NCHEC, and are separate from coursework. A capstone portfolio is graded on whether its evidence would persuade an outside reviewer that the work demonstrates the competencies claimed. Keep career plans out of the evidence entries.
Can designed work count as evidence at all?
Yes, for competencies about planning or design, provided it is labeled as designed. A plan can demonstrate planning skill; it cannot demonstrate implementation. Graders tend to penalize the blurring, not the plan itself. Where the prompt requires executed evidence for certain areas, say which areas your project could not reach and why.
How many entries should the portfolio include?
Enough to evidence each claimed competency once, well, which in many capstones means ten to fifteen entries. One strong excerpt per claim outperforms several weak ones. If your program specifies a number of areas or competencies, meet it, and treat an area your project cannot honestly evidence as a gap to state rather than a row to fill.
Where can I find a free HD599 Unit 7 sample paper?
This page holds a complete Unit 7 competency evidence portfolio from a volunteer fire district's decontamination capstone, with twelve labeled entries and references.
Why is the Ethics and Professionalism area empty?
The project met ethical conditions, such as review status and disclosure of the insider role, but these are conditions rather than a competency performed, so the portfolio leaves the area empty instead of stretching the framework.