Domestic Violence Information Resource Development workshop

The workshop was conducted as part of the project titled "Intimate Partner Violence: Perspective of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Community of Hull: A Community Consultation" funded by a Ferens Trust award to Dr Parveen Ali. The project aims to explore the issue of intimate partner violence (IPV) from the perspective of Black and Minority Ethnic Community (only the Muslim community; men and women) living in Hull.

Domestic Abuse Partnership, Hull City Council; Open Door,
Princes Avenue Methodist Church; Preston Road women’s centre;
Refugee Council; Hull Women Aid;
Hull Interpretation & Translation Service;
Faculty staff

The workshop, which was run by Parveen Ali and Yvonne Wilkinson, contributed to the development of some educational/informational material about intimate partner violence in Muslim communities, which will be culturally appropriate and sensitive to the needs of the Muslim community living in Hull and elsewhere.

RCN Congress 2013, Arena and Convention Centre, Liverpool 21-25th April

The Faculty of Health and Social Care secured a prime

Jane Wray, Sue Beacock, Carol Robinson and
vonne Needham at RCN Congress 2013 

slot in the Education and Training Zone in the Exhibition area at RCN Congress this year. In the four days of congress, over 3000 people attended to hear and debate the key contemporary issues in nursing.  Sue Beacock and Carol Robinson with support from Jane Wray and Yvonne Needham promoted the range of educational opportunities available in the FHSC and at the University of Hull. This year there was a lot of interest in the on-line and distance learning programmes with degree top ups, mental health, district nursing, community practice and critical care being people’s top priorities. Faculty staff had one to one sessions with over 300 people at the exhibition and were able to showcase the relevance and flexibility of the Faculty portfolio.

Photo details

Jane Wray, Sue Beacock, Carol Robinson and Yvonne Needham at RCN Congress 2013

Faculty colleague visits India

Julie Flint spent 5 weeks in Indore, which is the largest city in the state of Madhya Pradesh in the region of central India.  She says:

I spent five weeks as part of a health professional team, currently working in the UK, with a group of medical doctors who had moved back home to India after leaving high level NHS jobs in the UK. The project is to establish a unique collaboration and system management strategy for a new hospital: The Royal Shanti Healthcare. 

The building work had been delayed and we were initially disappointed that the inaugural ceremony and opening activity would not be taking place on this visit; however, it proved fortuitous.  The architects and doctors who were leading the project had signed off plans and the building was almost complete but through a nursing and midwifery view, the UK team were able to identify adjustments and additions that were fundamental. Most interesting was the absence of sluice facilities for the disposal of waste and bodily fluids. Whether this ws due to doctors not recognising the requirements because in the UK it is nurses who deal with such matters or whether, as one of the team—Dr Jamjute—acknowledged ‘Culturally it is only recent years that India is seeing the need to improve toilet and waste facilities’ and, therefore, perhaps not at the forefront of planning.

Birth pools arriving at the hospital

Despite the hot and dusty building site surroundings we discussed the future educational strategies for the workforce and worked on developing evidence based (UK style) guidelines and policies to guide staff along with clinical governance systems. Inspiringly, the most important concepts they were employing were being patient centred and supporting equality within the team providing care, moving away from a hierarchical structure of professional dominance. For example they want their nurses to challenge a doctor if he/she does not adhere to the infection control policy, where in other facilities visiting doctors would do as they please and inappropriately walk around the hospital in theatre scrubs.

Being there for International Women’s Day on the 8 March 2013 gave us opportunities to be involved in many public and professional events. I chaired Dr Jamjutes’ talk at The Times of India conference giving me the opportunity to speak about the importance of education at all levels of professionals and the public. We were also there for the Hindu Holi festival which celebrates the new season of spring and the abundance of colour that comes with it. People throw coloured powder at each other and ‘play’ with colour and proved to be extremely good fun.

The coloufrul Holi festival

The intention is for the Royal Shanti Healthcare facility to have a large focus on maternity care and fertility. As a midwife visiting developing countries I always feel a little frustrated by the lack of midwifery as an independent concept. Nurses in India undertake a National BSc or vocational college qualification, and obstetrics is just one part. It is medical doctors who conduct the births and it was clearly articulated by the team that doctors can be reluctant to await, patiently, labour progress for a normal birth when performing a caesarean section means the doctors have less time commitment and can conduct more deliveries. This is shocking when the caesarean section rate in private hospitals can be 80-90%.  Thankfully, this team of doctors want to support birth a different way and they want to educate women through the Hull model of birth preparation classes that I run in my business and normalise birth and to introduce the concept of waterbirth. The development of improved obstetric nursing care or even a midwifery training course is a strong possibility and I intend to work to bring that to fruition in some way.

Meet Ritah Tweheyo PhD Student

Ritah Tweheyo is a PhD Student from Uganda. She says:

I have a keen interest in nutrition and its impact on health of the population, especially women, which arose from my own experience in relation to food behaviours and weight influences. I am pursuing a PhD in Health Sciences having graduated with a first class Masters in Public Health- International Health from the University of Nottingham 2009/2010.

While in Uganda, I worked in the Northern districts transitioning from a 20-year long civil conflict, where I conducted project work focused at increasing access for women to HIV testing during pregnancy and linkage to treatment, as well as enhancing access for children under five with diarrhoea to oral rehydration therapy and nutritional supplements for malnourished children.

My PhD study, funded by the University of Hull Studentship, explores women’s eating behaviours and weight status in pregnancy. The rationale for the study results from gaps in the literature regarding interventions and research regarding maternal weight following pregnancy. Women naturally gain weight in pregnancy which may persist into the postpartum period and subsequently lead to maternal obesity later in life.

Whilst other factors for postpartum weight gain have been identified, what remains less clear is whether there is an alteration of food behaviours by women in pregnancy, which persists into the postpartum period, impacting not only on gestational weight gain but on postpartum weight retention and potentially on family food habits and practices.

Therefore this project seeks to explore the interrelations of food behaviours with weight status of pregnant women, comparing them with those never pregnant and postpartum, to understand women’s experiences of body image and societal influences on their perinatal engagement with food. The study is qualitative using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) methodology and drawing on aspects of discourse analysis.

Results from the study will be used to inform development of interventions to address the growing problem of maternal obesity both in the UK and internationally. 

Best research article prize

Jill Brooks, a second year PhD student in the Faculty has won a prize for the best research article in the Journal of the Dermatology Nurses' Association. The article is: Developing and investigating skin and wound cleaning approaches in rural Africa Journal of the Dermatology Nurses' Association 4, 255-259.


Jill's PhD project is investigating  the care managment of the skin in  a skin disease in Ethiopia called podoconiosis which affects at least 1 million  the rural poor in that country.

New Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Dr Jennifer Loke has been successful in her application for Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

New publication

Clare Whitfield, Julie Jomeen, Mark Hayter and Eric Gardiner Have published:

Sexual health information seeking: a survey of adolescent practices Journal of Clinical Nursing doi: 10.1111/jocn.12192