Dr Alison Twycross appointed as the new Head of Department for Children's Nursing in the Faculty of Health and Social Care
We are pleased to announce that Dr Alison Twycross is due to commence in post as Head of Department for Children's Nursing and Reader in Children's Pain Management.Alison will start with us at LSBU in September 2013. Alison qualified as a RGN and RMN in 1987 having completed an integrated course at the Princess Alexandra School of Nursing in London. Since then Alison has worked in children's nursing in a variety of settings in London, the Midlands and Scotland. She completed her RSCN course in 1990 at Enfield and Haringey School of Nursing and her MSc in Nursing Studies at City University in 1993. Following on from this at the University of Central Lancashire, Alison completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Management Studies in 1996, a CertEd(HE) in 1997 and her PhD entitled 'Children's Nurses' Pain Management Practices: Theoretical Knowledge, Perceived Importance and Decision-Making' in 2004. Alison was awarded a Smith and Nephew Fellowship that enabled her to undertake a period of observational data collection for her PhD in 2000.
At the University of Central England, Alison started her first academic appointment in 1996 where she was a member of the children's nursing team and in 1998 she moved to the University of Nottingham. Four years later in 2002 Alison took up a joint appointment between Glasgow Caledonian University and Yorkhill Hospital. Since 2005 she has been working within the Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education at Kingston University and St George's, University of London where she has led the children's nursing team as well as holding a number of other roles. Alison has also worked abroad, in 2011 she spent a six-month sabbatical at the Centre for Pediatric Pain Research at IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
I am absolutely delighted to be coming to London South Bank University as Head of Department for Children's Nursing and look forward to working with the team to ensure we provide the best possible educational experience to our students.
In addition, Alison is an experienced researcher who is recognised internationally in the area of acute pain in children. She has edited three books about managing pain in children, with the third book due to be published in 2014 as well as writing 37 peer reviewed articles and 22 book chapters. Alison has also written a series of papers aiming to demystify research and since August 2010 Alison has been the editor of the journal Evidence-Based Nursing. Alison is also a member of the editorial boards for Nurse Researcher, since 2008 and the Journal of Clinical Nursing, since 2002 where she provides expert knowledge in relation to children's nursing and nursing research. Alison is also secretary of the British Pain Society's Education in Pain Special Interest Group.
Being an expert on ethical issues relating to involving children and young people in research, Alison undertook a review of current ethical guidelines outlining the key issues that need addressing in this context which was published in 2009. In this area Alison has organised several workshops and given a number of conference presentations, as well as being a part of a group that developed an ethical road map for qualitative research for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.