Senior Lecturer in Health Visiting receives Institute Fellowship
The University's Senior Lecturer in Health Visiting, Karen Adams (pictured above right), receives the Institute of Health Visiting Fellowship from Professor Viv Bennett, Director of Nursing at Public Health England (PHE) and Director of Nursing at the Department of Health (DH).
Mon, 30 Mar 2015 14:46:00 BST
Karen Adams becomes the first Huddersfield academic to receive an Institute of Health Visiting Fellowship
A SENIOR Lecturer in Health Visiting has become the first University of Huddersfield academic to receive one of the prestigious fellowships offered by the Institute of Health Visiting (IHV).
Karen Adams, who is a senior lecturer on the Public Health Nursing Practice programme (Health Visiting and School Nursing) and course leader of the Practice Teacher programme, received the honour at a special ceremony held on NHS Change Day – 11 March, 2015 – alongside 150 health visitors in London.
The ceremony, the first of its kind for the Institute of Health Visiting, recognises the professional achievement of exceptional health visitors – creating a new country-wide group of expert and confident leaders who make a real difference to the health outcomes of children and their families.
To become a Fellow, the recipients went through a very rigorous application process in which they were assessed for their contributions to health visiting and also to children, families and communities.
Each Fellow was required to demonstrate excellence in practice and also their leadership potential and they also had to include three testimonials; one from a family, one from a peer and one from a senior manager.
Since being accepted, all Fellows have undertaken a special four-day leadership development programme. At the conferment ceremony, they were acknowledged as “expert and confident health visitor leaders who are ready to become local ambassadors for health visiting, as well as for the Institute of Health Visiting.”
Karen Adams began her career as a general nurse and then as a midwife in Wakefield and Pontefract. She subsequently qualified as a health visitor and practice teacher and worked in Pontefract, Leeds, Bradford and SSAFA in Germany before moving into nurse education. She has worked in higher education for 12 years and has successfully contributed towards growing and developing the health visiting and school nursing workforce whilst inspiring qualified practitioners to take up the challenge of providing their practice education.
Karen, who already holds a Queen’s Nurse Award from the Queen’s Nursing Institute, said: “I was delighted and honoured to be accepted for the Fellowship. I will use this award to help maintain and further raise awareness of the important contribution that health visitors make to improve the health and wellbeing of children, families and communities.”
