Biography

My initial training and staff nurse role was at The United Sheffield Hospitals. After a 6 month midwifery programme I trained as a health visitor. In the capacity of health visitor I had many interesting experiences working at first in Yorkshire mining villages and then rural North Wales. This was followed by posts in Lancashire and ultimately to Reading where I worked for 20 years in various locations, gaining experience in child protection work and in working with people form diverse cultural backgrounds.

For the final years in Reading I fulfilled a specialist role with homeless people, which involved identifying the needs of homeless families and single homeless people, developing specific services and facilitating access to main stream services.
This role involved working with a large number of voluntary and statutory agencies. In the specialist role I provided support for families in women’s refuges and became a member of the management committee for women’s aid services in Berkshire.
As a member of Community Practitioner’s Special Interest Group, Homelessness, I was able to provide inform to members of parliament and be an advocate for homeless people.

I also worked at Reading University, 1 day a week as a community practice lecturer. I have been a full time tutor at the University of Surrey since 2003 fulfilling the roles of Pathway lead for health visiting, Director of studies for BSc in Public Health Practice. I will be retiring from full time employment on 31st July 2009 and will relinquish these roles. I will be returning to work part time in September. and will continue to co-ordinate the level M Epidemiology and Health Protection, level 3 Epidemiology and Health Protection in Public Health Practice and level 3 Community Practitioner Nurse Prescribers V100 modules.

Research Interests

My research interest include Homelessness, Domestic Abuse and Inequality.

Publications

Historically, publications on Homelessness and Community Profiling.

Currently, July 2009 Co-author of a Council of Dean’s briefing paper: Current Challenges for Education for Specialist Community Public Health Nurses

Teaching

Programmes

    MSc in Public Health Practice
    BSc in Public Health Practice
    Adult Diploma

Module lead:

    Epidemiology and Health Protection
    Epidemiology and Health Protection in Public Health Practice
    Community Practitioner Nurse Prescribers V100

Contribute to modules:

    Public Health assessment
    Assessment in Public Health Practice
    Leading Empowered partnerships
    Working in Empowered Partnerships
    Foundations of health and Social Care
    Contribute sessions on domestic abuse on a number of modules