News and events
Postgraduate students work with local community on health and wellbeing project
A workshop run by The Bridge, a local community centre, and staff and students from the School of Nursing and Midwifery has been helping people to think of ways to improve their health and wellbeing.
Community engagement in health and social care seminar
Local engagement worker Catherine Herriott recently facilitated a seminar on community engagement in health and social care. Held at the request of the school's Service User and Carer Involvement Strategy Group, it aimed to encourage a greater understanding of community engagement in readiness for a new optional module for nursing students. The module will be studied in 2013 in the second year of the pre-registration nursing degree and is based on the successful template used by other university students through the Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP).
Catherine, from Engagement Consultancy Herriott Richards Consultants Ltd, has spent the last decade working in the charity sector undertaking roles such as Health Advocate and Referrals Officer, LINk Officer and Community Engagement Officer.
Service users and academic staff from the school and wider Faculty of Health and Social Science attended an informative and detailed session. Catherine provided an overview of the changing arrangements for community engagement in health and social care. She also illustrated the transition from Local Involvement Networks (LINks) to Health Watch with examples from her current work with East Sussex LINk.
13th Annual Mental Health Conference
The SNM Annual Mental Health conference, now in its thirteenth year, has gone from strength to strength and is an important event in the academic and local mental health communities of practice calendar. It is organised conjointly by the SNM Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Academic Subject Group (MHASG) and the SNM Carer /User Lecturer Group (CUSER). It provides an annual forum whereby mental health service user and carer groups, representatives from the voluntary sector, educators, students, academics, researchers, clinicians and managers from both health and social services can come together to discuss issues of common interest/concern.
This year the Annual Marian Beeforth Lecture was delivered by Malik Gull who is a radical social and community activist and Director of the Wandsworth Empowerment Network. This particular topic was a radical shift from recent conference themes which have focused either on the individual or family/carer’s ‘lived experience’ of mental health and service delivery. This year the theme dwelt on the wider landscape of service development and the associated politics of mental health.
Poetry project goes from strength to strength
The 'On our Doorsteps' initiative, How are you feeling? A stroke survivors' poetry writing project, continues to generate much interest in the school and the wider community. The project involves members of three local Stroke Clubs, school academic staff and pre-registration nursing students. The project team have secured additional funds to print a pamphlet and record a CD with the poems read by performance poet Kate Tym, and the project has recently been featured in The Stroke Association's newsletter. It has also led to The Stroke Association holding a poetry competition to be judged by former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.
Staff and service user seminar
Gillian Stokes and Ember Vincent from the Expert Patient Programme (EPP) led a seminar for staff and service users and carers. The seminar was part of the school staff events calendar and open to colleagues within the faculty. Lecturers and service user representatives from the East and West Sussex Local Involvement Networks (LINks) attended. It explored two aspects of EPP's work as a Community Interest Company (CIC).
Ember began by explaining the self-management courses offered to help people with long-term conditions. These typically run over six weeks and are held in local community venues. They focus on things people can do to pace themselves, eat better, relax and manage relationships. She elaborated on the self-management tool-kit which addresses symptom management and involves action planning and problem solving. Social impact and outcome measures were also discussed as part of evaluation. See the Expert Patients Programme website for further details.
Gillian Stokes spoke about the Service User Mentor Volunteer Project which she co-ordinates. It is a pilot scheme and a partnership with the Expert Patients Programme Community Interest Company, the University of Southampton, the former Thames Valley University (now the University of West London) and South Central Health Authority. EPP CIC have trained people living with a long-term health condition, who wish to become mentor volunteers, to support university students studying for the Health and Social Care Foundation Degree. The project aims are:
- To help students gain a greater understanding of what it means to live with a long-term condition and to improve the health and social care of people living with long-term conditions
- To help promote understanding of and improved practice in the self-management of long-term conditions
Gillian explained how volunteers are recruited, prepared and supported to reflect upon their experiences of mentoring students. Evaluation of the project is ongoing.
DVD to help with early awareness and detection of cancer
The School of Nursing and Midwifery and the Sussex Cancer Network Partnership Group have collaborated to produce a DVD on living with and beyond cancer. The Partnership Group is the service user group of the Sussex Cancer Network (SCN) and includes patients and carers who want to share their stories and help improve cancer services.
The DVD is not intended to be shown as one long account but sections used according to purpose. The Partnership Group have already used the getting a diagnosis section to raise awareness at a GP Patient Forum in West Sussex. As part of the group’s ongoing work to align with the National Awareness and Early Detection Initiative (NAEDI) the DVD provoked some interesting debate and discussion. One year cancer survival is poor in the UK compared to the rest of Europe and partly attributed to late diagnosis because people do not respond to symptoms, (Coleman et al, 2011). Maxine Bullen, SCN Facilitator for the Partnership Group said:
Service user and carer collaboration acknowledged in successful validation
Dr Shirley Bach, Head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery, was pleased to announce the successful validation of the Nursing (Adult) BSc(Hons), Nursing (Child) BSc(Hons) and Nursing (Mental Health) BSc(Hons) on Wednesday 6 April 2011. The course programme was approved by the university and, subject to completion of three conditions, submitted for approval to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) to start in September 2011. The NMC reviewers highly commended the curriculum team on the inclusion of service users and carers in the development of the course which is the first in the region to have the new all-graduate nursing programme validated. The course team were congratulated on the creative and innovative nature of the course.
Special thanks go to Michael Parrish, the Trevor Mann Baby Unit Parents' Forum, the Carer/User Lecturing Group, Garry Bisshopp and service users who have been involved in the course development over the last 18 months. This includes via the Get in Touch web page feedback.
Download our leaflet (pdf 214Kb) for more details on our new degree courses
New collection of narratives
Principal Lecturer Dr Alec Grant has co-authored and edited a unique and exciting collection of mental health service user, carer and survivor narratives. Written by 'experts by experience' this book will appeal to users and carers and to students of mental health.
Download further details on Our Encounters with Madness (pdf 18Kb)
