Local perinatal nurse wins an award for supporting those with trauma
Perinatal nurse specialist Helen Jackson has been honoured for her work on antenatal care in Suffolk.
She won the Hughes Award in the first University of Suffolk Purple Hearts Trauma Informed Practice Awards for a project with West Suffolk Hospital colleagues to embed trauma informed practice across the antenatal care pathway. The award is from local charity, survivors in transition, who lead on trauma informed training.
Helen is a perinatal clinical nurse specialist, advanced nurse practitioner and EMDR therapist with Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust.
Trauma informed practice looks to understand and respond to the impact of trauma on people’s lives. The project involved mapping out the antenatal care pathway for women across West Suffolk Hospital and looking at how teams can embed trauma informed practice for both staff and patients.
“Examples of trauma informed practice are loss, hyperemesis (severe vomiting and nausea), antenatal education and asking women early in their pregnancy if things have happened to them in their past that might impact on pregnancy and birth,” said Helen. “We are also running a perinatal midwife champion day next month with a bi-monthly forum to improve the communication and referrals from the community midwife teams as well as to share and disseminate good practice and examples of care.”
The awards ceremony took place at the University of Suffolk Waterfront Building on 15 February.
The awards celebrate working together and supporting each other and highlight, celebrate and encourage examples of excellent trauma informed practice.
Helen said: “I was quite overwhelmed to win the award and it means a lot to be recognised for the hard work that we all do as a team and given more momentum to continue with the project.”