I'm Nicole Townsend. Learning Disability student
Second year
I'm Natalie Collins and I'm a third year
Learning Disability student nurse
My name's Lee. I’m a first year Learning Disability nurse
Hi I'm Shevon Hewett. I’m a third year
Learning Disability student nurse and I'm at
Kingston University
I chose Learning Disability Nursing as a career because
I've always worked with individuals with learning
disabilities and I liked the environment
I like the social element of it
I'm passionate about my role, in the sense that I support
people to access better health care. I'm actually enjoying
both aspects of the course and we get to share our ideas
Clinically when I'm on placement, I get to work with adults
with disability, young children and their family
It's different because it’s not all clinical, as in doing
blood pressures and stuff, you’re helping them to
access the community
I chose Learning Disability Nursing because I have
a passion to advocate for people with learning disabilities
I've had previous experience working in an orphanage
for people with learning disabilities and it made me want to
fight for people with learning disabilities and their rights
During this course it gives us the opportunity to do a
variety of different placements so you have a choice to
work with children, people with challenging behaviour and
people with complex needs, so it’s good to get the variety
I've always worked within the field. I've been a
support worker. It was kind of a natural progression to
become a nurse and to advocate for people's needs
The thing that I've enjoyed most about the course
has been placements. I've had a good opportunity
to learn quite a lot while I've been on placement
The skills lab on campus is very very beneficial to the
learning disability student nurses. We don't necessarily
access a lot of generic hospitals, we do a lot of
community work and work with clients within their home
so being able to go to the skills labs to practice the
blood pressure and to look at all the other skills and
to perfect them, it's really really good
The skills labs are really beneficial. It helps you for your
practice your guidance for when you're actually out in
your placements, so you have every opportunity to go into
the skills lab whenever you want to practice the skills
that you require. Some skills you need more
practice than others
The skills labs have been really helpful because they’re
based on campus and we can go at anytime to practice
what we need and being a learning disability nurse
we don’t get enough practice on placement, so to have it
here on campus is really helpful for when we do need
that extra practice
The things I learnt very much from the service users is
to be patient to actually listen, not just to be there to hear
what they are saying but to listen to them and to see that
what their contribution is to their care is the most valuable
aspect of it, because it’s about them
I’ve learnt how to communicate better and I have learnt
also to effectively show my communication through using
Makaton which is generally used with people
with learning disabilities
I've enjoyed studying at Kingston University because of
the placement opportunities that I've had, I've worked
with children, adults and through a range of different
settings so that opportunities that I've had
have been absolutely excellent
The APEL support is really helpful. We meet the APEL tutor
a couple of times a year and they go through if we have
any problems, if there's anything that we need
assistance with and then they also go through our
portfolio for us and help us to develop it to an exceptional
standard that is required within the job as well
I've had good support from my mentors such as
they've individualised to my needs when I've been
on placement. They don’t fit a generic mould which every
student has to fit in to. They've always taken my
learning style into consideration
I love this course and I’ve really enjoyed that I've met
a variety of different people here. I think I've developed
so much. I think I'm a completely different person
than I was in the first year. I think I was always quite
a confident person about learning disabilities but now that
I've come to the end of the course, I feel much more able
speak up for what I believe in
What I've enjoyed most is meeting the people along
the way. I've met some great friends and great people
who hopefully will be my life-long friends now and
really inspirational. Kingston itself is really a
lovely place to live in
Over the three years I've developed as a person
I came in straight from school and now I'm here finishing
and I'm a learning disability nurse. I was very timid when
I came in and its help me grow as a person to help me
be a much more confident practitioner and to carry out
my career as a learning disability nurse
I think I've grown a lot over this first year I've been
at Kingston. I think I've grown in confidence quite a lot
Before I was quite nervous and now I have lots more
knowledge to when it comes to being with a service user
The reason I chose to study at Kingston University was
because it’s close to my home and it’s my local university
and the area, I love the area, I didn't want to move
out of the area. The night life's great, the river and
I had heard good things about the University and
people had recommended it for me
So that's the reason I chose to come to
Kingston University
I chose Kingston University out of three options
that I was offered because Kingston was the best and
I want to be the best so I chose to be at the best