Speakers Biographies November 2016 Conference

Speakers Biographies November 2016 Conference

Shirley Potts

North Development Lead for Child Bereavement UK – a national charity that supports parents when a baby or child dies, and children bereaved of anyone significant. The charity trains around 7000 professionals each year and offers a range of online resources for those seeking information around death and bereavement. Shirley joined Child Bereavement UK in 2012 as Director of the Department of Health funded Regional Development Project which looked to improve bereavement support in areas of deprivation. Prior to this, she spent ten years as a university lecturer maintaining her interest in bereavement issues following seven years at a children’s hospice where she was responsible for counselling and bereavement support. She has an M.A. in Counselling and a M.Sc. in Educational Research, is a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Shirley has spoken widely on death, dying and bereavement and has authored a book, Everylife: death, bereavement and life through the eyes of children, parents and practitioners, and contributed chapters to various other publications, as well as several journal articles on the subject of bereavement – most recently in the Journal of Early Childhood Research. Her aim is to raise awareness of the relevance and impact of supporting children and families around the time of a death – thereby limiting the likelihood of later, costlier, outcomes of unresolved grief.

Philip Larkin

Associate Professor School Of Nursing, Midwifery & Health Systems
Health Sciences Centre, University College Dublin

Phil Larkin trained as a Registered Nurse and Paediatric Nurse in the UK and worked in a variety of clinical posts, latterly in paediatric oncology and bone marrow transplantation. He subsequently trained as a Health Visitor and District Nurse in London and worked in community paediatrics, before moving to palliative care in 1990.He has worked in Palliative Care in Ireland since 1992, in both in-patient and community settings. He was Director of Education at Our Lady’s Hospice, Harolds Cross, Dublin, from 1998-2001 before taking up a pilot post as Regional Co-Ordinator for Palliative Nursing Services in the West of Ireland. He was appointed Associate Professor of Clinical Nursing ( Palliative Care) at University College Dublin and Our Lady’s Hospice, Harold’s Cross Dublin in November 2008. He is director of the Masters in Palliative Care programme and leads the palliative care research programme within the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems. He is a member of the National Council for Palliative Care in Ireland with specific responsibility for education. Phil holds a PhD from The Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, a Masters in Health Professional Education from the University of Huddersfield and a Bachelor of Science in Community Nursing from Kings College London. He was Vice-President of The European Association for Palliative Care, Milan, Italy until April.2007. In 2006, Phil was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by Macmillan Cancer Support and the International Journal of Palliative Nursing in recognition of his European and International work on education in palliative care nursing. He lectures on end-of-life care nationally and internationally and has published extensively on issues relative to palliative care, palliative care nursing and education. His current research interests include the place of compassion in the delivery of 21st century palliative care, the nursing assessment and management of opioid-induced constipation and the role of palliative care in congestive heart failure.

Dr. Stuart Milligan

Lecturer (Joint Appointment with Ardgowan Hospice, Greenock) University of the West of Scotland

Stuart is responsible for providing an education service to meet the education and training needs of Ardgowan hospice staff as well as visiting professionals and external groups. He is jointly employed as Lecturer in Cancer and Palliative Care at the School of Health, Nursing and Midwifery, University of the West of Scotland (UWS). At UWS, he co-ordinates a number of cancer and palliative care modules at degree and postgraduate level and also provides supervision for masters degree students. He has written journal articles and book chapters on topics including the history of palliative care, mouth care, spiritual care, palliative care for older people, palliative care research, palliative care in hospitals and the work of nursing theorist Martha Rogers.

He recently co-authored a textbook on Palliative Care Nursing with UWS colleagues Elaine Stevens and Susan Jackson. Stuart is also active in research and serves on the West of Scotland Research Ethics Committee as an expert member. He is active in local service development, serving as Chair of the Inverclyde Palliative Care Planning and Implementation Group.

Bob Whorton Chaplain

Chaplain Michael Sobell House, Oxford. Author of Voices from the Hospice – staying with life through suffering and waiting and Reflective Caring: Imaginative listening to pastoral experience. Bob has a wealth of experience as a hospice chaplain.

Professor Julia Downing

Professor Edge Hill University- Evidenced based practice research centre

Professor Julia Downing is an experienced palliative care nurse, educationalist and researcher, with a PhD that evaluated palliative care training in rural Uganda. She has been working within palliative care for 25 years, with fifteen of those working internationally in Uganda, Africa and Eastern Europe. As well as a Visiting Professor at Edge Hill, she is an Honorary Professor at Makerere University, Kampala, the Director of Education and Research for the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) and an International Palliative Care Consultant. She has also recently worked as the Team Leader on an EU funded project to develop palliative care in Serbia. She has extensive experience in research, presenting at conferences and writing for publication, and is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Palliative Nursing (IJPN). She has been involved in a number of local, national and international research studies, and regularly teaches research skills.

Professor Downing serves on the Boards of several international NGOs including the International Association of Hospice and Palliative Care, is on the Board of Hospice in the Weald, and APCA UK, and the Palliative Care Research Society. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow with the Department of Palliative Care, Policy and Rehabilitation, at King’s College London, England. She was the recipient of the IJPN’s Development Award in 2006, the Robert Tiffany Lectureship from the International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care in 2014, and the Pearl Moore “Making a Difference” International Award for Contributions to Cancer Care from the Oncology Nursing Society in 2015.

Jane Lings

Jane Lings is a music therapist with extensive clinical experience in palliative and bereavement care, who has also had a parallel career as senior lecturer at the University of the West of England teaching on the MA Music Therapy Course. She currently works freelance as music therapist and clinical supervisor and visiting lecturer at UWE and Bristol University. Her 15 years at St Peter’s Hospice, Bristol, where she established the first arts therapies post, led to her pioneering the use of songwriting in clinical practice and ultimately teaching and publishing about this area of work as well as being involved in performance of patients songs with a music therapy colleague Bob Heath. She has presented regularly at conferences both in the UK and in Europe, and was invited to contribute to a government round table about the arts in palliative care. She is a trustee of hospice23

Chris Swift is a Head of Chaplaincy Services at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals and a former President of the College of Health Care Chaplains.

With over twenty years of chaplaincy experience Chris has taught on both the Cardiff MTh and the Leeds Metropolitan University's chaplaincy MA. He is currently leader for two modules on the Leeds Met course and is an honorary research fellow at the University of Leeds. In 2009 Ashgate published his book Hospital Chaplaincy in the Twenty-first Century and a second edition became available in 2014. Chris continues to work in the area of qualitative research as a means of understanding and valuing the unique role of health care chaplains.

Cameron Langlands

Head of Chaplaincy Service Provision, Training and Volunteer Development, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (2012 onwards). Cameron has been involved in various health care chaplaincies over a number of years including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Mental Health Partnerships and Central Lancashire teaching Hospitals. He is an ordained Church of Scotland Minister and has written on a wide number of subjects including spirituality, mental health, sexuality and gender issues, HIV and palliative care. He is a trustee of hospice23.

Susan Salt

Medical Director and Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Trinity Hospice, Blackpool for the last nine years. She is chair of the Palliative and end of life Network for Lancashire and South Cumbria element of the North West Coast Strategic Clinical network, She has considerable experience in leading organisational change within a hospice setting and as a senior manager within the independent charitable sector. She is a trustee of hospice23.