Nursing student wins prestigious RCN Nursing Award for creating RISE Discharge Wellbeing Pack
A former Coventry University student who decided to retrain as a mental health nurse after her own battle with depression has created a discharge wellbeing pack to help others in a similar situation.
Now Leanne Howlett has won the Nursing Student Award in the RCN Nursing Awards for developing the resource, which she co-produced with children and young people during her time on placement with RISE; Coventry and Warwickshire’s specialist mental health service for children and young people.
Leanne said,
“I very quickly realised how difficult a time discharge was for the patients, how unsettled it made them feel, and how the presentation of change would make them start to display symptoms of risk, anxiety and depression.”
This led to Leanne creating a wellbeing pack that is now being handed to patients with RISE when they are discharged from their care. The pack combines a mixture of the skills the patients have learned, reassures them about being discharged and empowers them to understand that they are ready for it and that they are the ones who have done all the work. It includes information on sleep hygiene skills, grounding techniques, coping strategies and summarises everything they have learned over their time with RISE.
Nicola Evans, Lead Nurse for RISE said: “The RISE Discharge Wellbeing Pack will transform daily nursing practice. It will support in celebrating the progress and futures of the children and young people who have accessed our service.
“On behalf of RISE and Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust, I would like to take the opportunity to say a big thank you for the difference it has, and will continue to make, in the lives of so many young people.”
Leanne, who has since qualified as a registered mental health nurse, was announced as the Student Nurse winner at the RCN awards ceremony on 10 November in Liverpool.
RISE specialist mental health service for children and young people forms part of Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust.