Hilary Ford

Hilary Ford is a Senior Lecturer for Mental Health Nursing. Her area of specialism is child, young people and family mental health and a Life Course approach to mental health.

[email protected]

Background

Hilary Ford trained as a Psychiatric Nurse in Gloucestershire and relocated to Cambridge in 1989 where she obtained a nursing post on an Adolescent Unit. Following this she worked for several years as a Community Psychiatric Nurse for Children young people and their families. In 2001 she pursued a career in teaching. Past teaching has included post registration courses relating to CAMH and Mater’s level Sociology of Health and Illness to public health trainees, medical and managerial staff.

Research interests

• A life course perspective for understanding mental health
• Sociology of health and illness
• Risk and protective factors for mental health

In 2012-2013 Hilary held a CLAHRC Fellowship. For this one-year project she carried out a collaborative piece of research with Dr Terry Dickerson form the Engineering Design Centre at Cambridge University and Dr Paul Wilkinson, Undergraduate Speciality Psychiatry Director also from Cambridge University. The output was the design and implementation of a Life Course Tool Box for the teaching and learning of a life course approach for pre-registration nurses for mental health. This toolbox went live on the Anglia Ruskin University VLE in September 2013 and has been actively used by two cohorts of students across both the Cambridge and Chelmsford sites. The toolbox is being used enthusiastically and it has evaluated well.

Areas of research supervision

Hilary supervises students undertaking undergraduate major projects for mental health nursing, covering a broad range of topics linked to mental health.

Teaching

Hilary is the module tutor for two pre-registration modules including module four, 'Philosophy and Values of Mental Health Nursing' and module five ‘Evidence Based Nursing Practice’. She contributes to teaching on all of the pre-registration modules for Mental Health nursing. In addition she undertakes some teaching on the Master’s level module ‘Significant Events in Childhood'.

Qualifications

• MA Sociology of Health Studies, University of Essex
• BA(Hons) Sociology, University of York
• PGC Med Education, Cambridge University
• Mental Health Nursing Level 1, ENB
• Award in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Nursing, ENB

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

• CLAHRC Fellow - National Institute for Health research (NIHR) Grant awarded 2012-2013

Selected recent publications

Ford. H.J., 2012, Childhood Generalised Anxiety-Sara, Chapter 4 in’ Mental Health Nursing Case Book’ 2012, ed Nick Wrycraft. McGraw Hill, UK.

Recent presentations and conferences

Ford, H.J., Dickerson, T.L. and Wilkinson, P., 2014. Designing a Toolbox for the Teaching and Learning of a Life Course Approach for Undergraduate Pre-registration Mental Health Nurses. In: The 20th International Network for Psychiatric Nursing Research. 18^th-19^th September 2014, University of Warwick: Royal College of Nursing. [Oral presentation]

Dickerson, T.L., Ford, H.J. and Wilkinson, P., 2014. A Toolbox for the Teaching and Learning of a Life Course Approach for Mental Health: Development Using a Design Approach. In: The 20th International Network for Psychiatric Nursing Research. 18^th-19^th September 2014, University of Warwick: Royal College of Nursing. [Poster]

Ford, H.J. Designing a Toolbox for the Teaching and Learning of a Life Course Approach for Pre-registration nurses for mental health. CLAHRC East Launch Event, 10^th October 2013, Cambridge (Oral Presentation)