A team of nurses from The Children’s Trust School has won The Burdett Nursing Award for Young People’s Health.
The School, which provides specialist education, health, therapy and care services to children with complex needs, received the prestigious award after launching a project which encourages health promotion for young people with complex neurodisabilities and acquired brain injuries.
The awards evening, which took place at the Waldorf Hotel, London, in May, is organised by The Burdett Trust. Seven awards celebrating good nursing practice were presented and each winner received a grant of £20,000 towards their project.
The Children’s Trust School’s award-winning project has been led by Simone Carter, Lead School Nurse. With her team, Simone launched a health promotion initiative after finding that there is a lack of any formal health promotional guidance or resources for young people with profound and multiple learning disabilities, complex neurodisabilities or acquired brain injuries.
The team worked together to define health promotion for the young people and decide the best delivery methods. The result was a range of innovative and fun health promotion and prevention opportunities, resources and experiences for the young people at The Children’s Trust.
The first topic which was promoted to young people at The Children’s Trust School was personal well-being. Multi-sensory activities introduced during the initiative included the use of different toothpastes, brushes, face masks and massages. Research undertaken by the team and feedback from staff following implementation presented a positive response.
Simone Carter, Lead School Nurse at The Children’s Trust said:
We are so proud to have won the Young People’s Health Award and had a fantastic time celebrating our achievement at the ceremony.
Promoting health for young people with complex neurodisability and brain injury is something we are passionate about at The Children’s Trust. We are already seeing positive impact from the programme that has covered several topics to date and look forward to developing it further.
Maggie Clancy, Director of Clinical Services at The Children’s Trust said:
The work being undertaken by the team leading the health promotion project has been inspiring and this award is a credit to their hard work and commitment. The team have kept the children and young people we support at the forefront of their minds throughout this project which is very evident in the positive results.
The winning team from The Children’s Trust consists of Simone Carter, Lead School Nurse; Dr Kathy Davis, Research Nurse; Elizabeth Myers, School Nurse; Sue Hatcher, Health Care Assistant; Nicola Rocca, Infection Prevention Control Nurse; Jonathan Fever, Music Therapist; Seeta Shah, Speech and Language Therapist; Launa Randles, Deputy Headteacher; and Hayley O’Byrne, Specialist Teaching Assistant.
If you want to find out more about The Children’s Trust and The Children’s Trust School you can attend their Professional Showcase on 27 June. The day, which is free to attend, gives an insight to the work of the charity, which provides rehabilitation for children with acquired brain injury and neurodisability and specialist education, health, therapy and care for children with complex needs.
