Curriculum Vitae

I am a Paediatric Physiotherapist with specialist expertise in neurology and rehabilitation. I have an extensive depth of post-graduate education and over 18 years of experience in this field. I am committed to providing highly specialised physiotherapy rehabilitation for children with complex needs, including but not limited to those with Cerebral Palsy, Brain Injury and Orthopaedic Injury. I endeavour to provide a holistic approach with my interventions and work closely at all times with other professionals to provide a multi-disciplinary environment for rehabilitation.

My extensive physiotherapy experience when working with children and their families enables me to use a problem solving and functional approach to meet their needs. I feel that a real strength of my practise and experience is maintaining good lines of communication with all those involved in the child’s care including colleagues involved from statutory services, while providing high quality rehabilitation.

I feel passionate and enthusiastic about paediatric physiotherapy and endeavour to provide high quality, individualised care for my clients. Therefore, setting up my own service to be able to provide this to my clients and their families feels like the next natural step in my career. I enjoy the challenge of movement and postural analysis and problem-solving individualised requirements. I find the practical elements and the holistic involvement with the families of my clients tremendously rewarding.

I was given the wonderful opportunity in March 2020 to go to Uganda with the charity Medcare to work alongside and support their 2 paediatric physiotherapy staff. It was a life-altering and rewarding experience that helped me to re-evaluate my practise. While there I worked with babies and young children with Cerebral Palsy after Malaria and those with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus in the Wellspring Medical Centre and I jointly carried out home visits in the rural and isolated communities to assess need for a sponsorship programme.

Over my career I have worked in a variety of both NHS and private settings across the North-West including inpatient/outpatient settings and community environments. This includes homes, pre-school settings, mainstream and special schools. I feel this gives me an in depth and wide knowledge of the scope of physiotherapy treatments as well as an extensive knowledge of paediatric equipment.

For the last 6 years I have worked for an independent neurological rehabilitation physiotherapy service in the North-West of England. Over this period, I developed and ran the paediatric service, assessing and providing high quality physiotherapy care for those self-funding and case managed clients. I set up and developed several new elements to the service provision including rebound therapy and the introduction of the Innowalk (a motorised cyclical walker for those with profound physical needs) to the clinic setting.

For those on my caseload I provided paediatric physiotherapy rehabilitation in a clinic setting, mainstream and special schools as well as client’s homes using a range of interventions including neuro-developmental therapy, rebound therapy, 24 hour postural management programmes, the use of supportive equipment and hydrotherapy. I successfully completed the STA Level 2 Award in Safety Award for Teachers in November 2019 to ensure I meet the safety requirements to lead hydrotherapy sessions.

I feel that it is extremely important to ensure that all those involved in a child’s care are sufficiently trained and supported to follow physiotherapy programmes in all settings to maximise the client’s potential and integrate the advice into daily routines. This includes families, support staff, education staff and other professionals. To meet this need I would regularly train and support education/support staff and families through the provision of photograph-based programmes and presentations. As part of my role I was heavily involved in Multi-Disciplinary Team meetings for my clients to ensure that collaborative and across profession rehabilitation could take place. I also regularly liaised with statutory colleagues to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the individual’s rehabilitation.

In my previous statutory role, I was a Highly Specialist Paediatric Physiotherapist, in a large Paediatric Community Therapy Team. Over my time as part of that service I was heavily involved in the training of rotational members of the team as well as established team members. I developed a number of new pathways and good practice guidelines formulated on evidence-based practise and research. I developed a service for the assessment and treatment of those children who presented with Developmental Co-ordination Disorder, which involved the teaching of mainstream primary school teachers to successfully identify those pupils who required referring into the service. I also developed a 24-hour Postural Management Pathway for those with Complex Needs and supported other staff members in its implementation, as well as the development of community hydrotherapy provision.

My main clinical role was to provide community physiotherapy to children from the ages of 0 to 19 years in a variety of settings as well as support and planning to enable successful transitions at key stages in their lives.

Prior to this, I developed core post graduate experience as a Physiotherapist at the St Helens and Knowsley Foundation Hospital NHS Trust through a rotational post that included experience in inpatient, outpatient and community practice.

My professional development has been greatly enhanced by my extensive post graduate training, which has been acquired through professional courses, and experience gained through working in multiple paediatric settings. My expertise includes The Bobath Concept of Rehabilitation, Rebound Therapy, Functional Electrical Stimulation and Aquatic Therapy.