My teaching focus includes the complexities of knowledge for practice: lifeworld led care and the nature of evidence for practice. This includes perspectives on well-being, on suffering, on dignity. In addition to a ‘caring science ‘ focus I teach on a range of qualitative research methods and approaches in particular phenomenology. My interests include how the arts and humanities can be a resource for practice and professional education in health and social care, in particular how professionals can develop deep understandings of what people go through as a form of evidence for care. Additionally, creativity, how it can be nourished and what Universities can do to create the spaces and processes for creative endeavours is a topic that I have had a long term interest in.

I like to engage with students in a range of ways that include 1:1 discussions, small group work, and reflective group supervision, in addition to keynote lectures and development of resources for blended learning.

Examples of my teaching experience include:

Experience of leading large scale blended learning units of study. For example at Undergraduate level: Development of an innovative interprofessional ‘lifeworld led’ research unit for level I (600 second year health and social care undergraduate students spanning physiotherapy, paramedic, occupational therapy, midwifery, nursing and social work students) using ‘Blackboard’ VLE to support rich blended learning and innovative assessment using ‘Question Mark Perception’ software, (the unit of learning was validated 2009). This unit was supported by lectures delivered by the Professoriate of the school and learning content is underpinned by a philosophy of lifeworld led care. Twelve digital lifeworld led case studies which draw on a range of evidence developed for students to access on line, lectures focused on the theoretical and research perspectives that were being led at the time from Bournemouth University. The initiative culminated in a Vice Chancellors Award for Enhancing the Student Experience in May, 2011. The unit of study was also awarded a student nominated national prize from Subject Centre for Social Policy and Social Work (SWAP) Higher Education Academy, category – assessment.

At postgraduate level:

Leadership of an innovative curriculum development for a Professional Doctorate in Practice open to candidates from health, social care and education which was validated in 2001; this is a distinctive doctoral programme, unlike other Professional Doctorates available in the UK. I have been developed a novel group supervision process for doctoral students in collaboration with Todres, using some principles from psychotherapy group work. In collaboration with colleagues have been evaluating professional doctorates in the context of professional issues in nursing and have contributed to its sustained delivery with a high completion rate.

Masters in Research (Online):

At the University of Hull, contributing to development of blended postgraduate research training materials including advanced qualitative research.

As both a nurse and scholar my theoretical work and current empirical research is grounded in a keen interest in philosophy and phenomenology. I aspire to contribute to fields concerned with how we can come to understand human experience in well-being and in vulnerability. Although this opens me to strong interdisciplinary influences I am particularly interested in mining the breadth and depths of these explorations and research projects in order to bring back into nursing new insights for the meaning of care, relevant research methodologies, and epistemological frameworks that can enhance nursing practice, but also health and social care practice and education.

My personal academic project concerns a contribution to philosophically informed theoretical insights and their import for the practice of caring. My research work draws on humanities and the arts and I feel at home working in interdisciplinary contexts relevant to well-being, human experience and caring: In describing lived experiences and re-presenting them for the purposes of public and professional engagement empirically build upon a philosophically informed articulation of well-being and suffering. I aim to further develop ‘lifeworld led care’; further explore synergies and contributions to health related humanities and to practices in human services.

I wish to continue to pursue all of these strands in order to further develop nursing theory, philosophy and research, with contributions to a distinctive development of person centred care: a framework for well-being, humanisation and suffering that can take account of a range of vulnerabilities in health and social care contexts.

Current research projects:

• Humanising Services: A new transferable strategy for improving “What matters to people” to enhance dignity in care. Funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing
• Preparing to Care: Longitudinal study of health professions students and impact of placements on readiness to engage in caring work. Funded by Yorkshire and Humberside LETB
• A feasibility study of a randomised controlled trial of an Arts for Health group intervention to support self confidence and psychological wellbeing following a stroke. Funded by NIHR PI Caroline Ellis Hill

Previous research projects (in collaboration with interdisciplinary teams):

• Humanly Sensitive Dementia Care: Practice Development using a new theory for Humanising care
• The Mii-vitaliSe study: A pilot RCT of a home gaming system (Nintendo Wii) to increase activity levels, vitality, well-being in people with MS
• Grey and Pleasant Land? Connectivity and rural elders in South West England and Wales Funded by Research Councils UK PI Catherine Hennessey
• RCT of fatigue management intervention in Multiple Sclerosis Funded by MS Trust

Research Centres and Groups

• Centre for Health Research