I am a Practice Learning Quality Lead and Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing, Midwifery,Allied & Public Health at Canterbury Christ Church University. I have been a registered adult nurse for over 20 years, predominantly practicing in the community. After several years working as a community nurse in London, then West Kent, I moved into clinical lead roles in nursing homes which ignited my passion for Social Care. I then became a senior nurse assessor within NHS Continuing Healthcare, growing my understanding of the health & social care landscape and the importance of multi-disciplinary collaboration to support people with complex needs. In all my nursing roles, I had taken the lead for staff development and supervision of learners, so I decided to follow this path and take a role as Learning & Development Manager in a new social care nursing organisation. We gained an Outstanding CQC rating, and I won local and national awards for the training programmes I had introduced. I became a champion for the Nursing Associate apprenticeship, which led me to my first role within the university in 2019.
Since being at CCCU, I have remained in roles focused on practice learning and am proud of the strong relationships I have built with practice partners across Kent, Medway and beyond. We do not just work with our practice partners for placements, our unique position allows us to strengthen the partnership community by bringing organisations together to collaborate on projects and research, and ensure the voice of practice is heard within the school. We support the development of their workforce by promoting CPD opportunities and helping to design and facilitate training.
Our team strive to deliver safe, effective and positive placement experiences for both learners and those supporting them. We work closely with course teams to provide guidance for a consistent equitable approach to practice learning throughout the school. We are engaged with external bodies and networks to share good practice, new innovations and support with quality concerns. We are always looking to expand placement capacity and diversity to ensure we provide opportunities and experiences that will effectively prepare the health and social care workforce of the future.