Elizabeth Jarratt

I am a community learning disability nurse; I work in an adult community multi-disciplinary team. I work with adults with a learning disability across their full health profile. I hold a case load of mixed complexity and health profiles, much of the work I do is around mental health support. This includes individuals in the community with anxiety and depressive disorders to those with more long standing chronic mental health disorders which impact their day to day functioning. Within the physical health aspect of my role, we work with service users to enable them to have access to primary and secondary health services with the support of reasonable adjustments. We also work to advocate for our service users to ensure they have the right access to health screening and tests they may struggle to have otherwise.

As part of the Fellowship,  am hoping to develop and practice my own leadership and interpersonal skills in my professional role within my team as well as with individuals who use our services. As a Band 6 community nurse, I hold some complex cases and I am looking towards the career progression of a leadership role within the next few years, I am hoping the fellowship will expand my confidence and capability in managing situations.

In my previous role the demographic of service users was very different to my current roles. Particularly I am now working with individuals who have their own dependents and more responsibilities, within my previous roles it was very rare for an individual with a learning disability to have children or paid employment. This, therefore, has challenged my practice and I have quickly learned how to adapt to taking a more collaborative approach to their health needs rather than a coordinating role. I am looking to further this development of collective practice and working alongside services and service users.