Sophie Gregory

I am currently a community nurse working in the Community Learning Disability ENE team. We are based at Asket Croft in Seacroft. We work with individuals who have a diagnosis of a learning disability or autism whose needs cannot be met in mainstream services with reasonable adjustments. The team is made up of nurses, occupational therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, physiotherapists and speech and language therapists. As nurses we offer a variety of different interventions including

• Promoting emotional and physical health through direct care, support and liaison with health and social care agencies
• Assessment of health needs
• Planning care
• Co-ordinating and implementing health care through specialist and mainstream services
• Positive behaviour support

I am looking forward to developing my leadership skills and gaining confidence within this area. I would like to develop my knowledge and skills around learning disabilities and mental health so that in time, I will be able to have a larger influence across LD services and shape how these are going to look in the future. I would also like to increase my knowledge base in order to support service users, their families and also their services and offer person-centred care.

As an aspiring leader for the future, I feel this fellowship will help me experience different approaches to care and in turn enable me to deliver high quality care and also create a supportive work place to other staff members within my team.

I will also benefit from having the opportunity to work with other LD nurses outside of my team and other likeminded individuals to learn from their experiences and ways of working.