Mar 16 2011 2:00PM
A nursing graduate from UCS has been selected to travel to America and Holland, exploring services for children & young people’s emotional wellbeing and sexual health. The opportunity arose through the Florence Nightingale Travel Scholarship where Lacey Swann was chosen from a pool of candidates following a rigorous interview process in London where she wowed the panel with her proposal.
The scholarship is organised by the Florence Nightingale Foundation which exists to support nurses and midwives with scholarships, mentoring and perhaps, most importantly, to give them some recognition they so richly deserve. The Foundation allows clinical professionals to partake in study at home and abroad - extending knowledge and skills to enable nurses and midwives to meet changing needs and improve patient care.
Lacey completed her SCPHN Post Graduate Diploma| within the School of Nursing and Midwifery| at UCS and has since gone on to work for Suffolk Community Healthcare as a Community School Nurse.
“I am delighted to have been selected for the travel scholarship as this opportunity will give me the time out of practice to observe what other countries are doing to address the increasing concern surrounding children and young people with emotional difficulties and risk taking sexual behaviour. My objectives from this travel is to learn from colleagues around the world to attempt to tackle issues relating to children’s ill health with a view to being innovative upon my return. I believe that there is a huge need to create a greater emphasis on health promotion with children and young people in schools so that they are able to be fully informed. If nothing more, this opportunity will enable professionals from around the world to learn and develop their skills from one another and to enrich our practice on a local level through dissemination.”
Lacey will be travelling to America in March and April this year and hopes to learn from Holland’s models later on within the year. The scholarship is a four week project in which Lacey will be working closely with Professor Marc Atkins from the University of Illinois to observe and work with their current projects which are set up in deprived schools and communities to combat emotional difficulties in children. Possible outcomes from this project may be to mirror successful projects that have worked in the states with a view to setting up a collaborative intervention programme locally.