I have had a varied clinical background which spanned 20 years within the NHS as an occupational therapist, predominantly within mental health and psychological medicine, latterly as a Clinical Team Manager within a regional Chronic Fatigue Syndrome service. During my clinical career, I have been responsible for setting up innovative services within secondary and primary care, as well as delivering educational programmes on the subjects of fatigue, sleep and resilience to charitable organisations, statutory and business sectors.
I have spent the latter 19 years working in higher education as a Senior Lecturer in Occupational Therapy and I am currently the Professional Course Lead for both the BSc and MSc Occupational Therapy Programmes at York St John University.
I have a passion for teaching in all areas related to occupational therapy! But I am particularly keen on teaching the philosophical underpinning of the profession (occupational science). I also have tended to work in supporting students in developing their entrepreneurial acumen in potential roles and innovative practice and this reflects my research in Role Emerging Placements. I lead on one of the first modules (of the BSc programme), in terms of developing the professional skills for practice. I then lead on one of the last modules of the BSc programme which explores and develop skills for entry into the profession. I also support the research modules of both programmes and supervise students in their own research projects.
With my extensive knowledge in occupational lifestyle management (having written and edited a book on Lifestyle Management in Health and Social Care), I do like to encourage students to understand how people lead their lives and help them develop skills to take control of symptoms in order for them to enhance their wellbeing. I use scenarios and problem based learning strategies to structure my teaching to demonstrate the skills that are needed to enable people to follow their occupational potential and life path. So some of my teaching engages students to consider peoples' assets in life and their ability to build on these.
My research concerns the impact of Role Emerging Placements on student learning and future practice. I devised an innovative model for Role Emerging Placements, the first in England for a full cohort of occupational therapy students, and I am a lead editor of an international book on role emerging practice, as well as having over an 18 year history of published peer reviewed research regarding scoping potential roles for occupational therapy practice and applying business and entrepreneurial skills to the occupational therapists skills portfolio.
I am lead editor on a book concerning lifestyle management and presented at local, national and international conferences as well as facilitating CPD workshops for occupational therapists. I was awarded a Merit Award in 2016 from the Royal College of Occupational Therapists in recognition of my outstanding contribution to the profession. I was also a member of the Learning and Development Board at the Royal College of Occupational Therapists until June 2019.
Recent publications
I am an External Examiner to another pre-registration occupational therapy programme within the UK. I am a state registered occupational therapist with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), and regularly provide professional supervision to other registered occupational therapists. I also liaise regularly with the professions' national organisation (Royal College of Occupational Therapists) especially in terms of re-accreditation of the MSc and BSc occupational Therapy programmes.
I am also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
