AHP Scot Children & Young People’s Blog 2 year milestones

by Jane Reid AHP National Lead for Children & Young People

Less than 2 years ago if anyone had mentioned Twitter to me far less writing a blog I would not have understood either. However, Project Ghandi was the inspiration for AHP Directors and National Leads in Scotland to embrace social media, and I confess I was one of the “early adopters”. I can’t quite believe that I now have over 500 followers and 2500 tweets behind me and when I look at some of my “tweets” that have been “retweeted” by fellow “tweeters” the reach  and the potential for raising awareness of AHPs is immense; just yesterday one was tweeted to someone with over 3000 followers! However, there is a limit to what you can share in 140 characters and I feel it is now time to dip my toe in the world of blogging. I confess I feel a mixture of fear, excitement and a good dose of just get on and do it!

So what has been the inspiration this time? I could have blogged before! Sometimes it just seems the right time!

At the beginning of September I took up post as AHP National Lead (in Scotland) for Children & Young People (CYP) for a period of 2 years. This post is a direct result of the AHP National Delivery Plan action 4.1 and over the next 2 years I will be working really closely with a wide range of stakeholders to develop and implement a transformational AHP children & young people’s service plan. This seemed to me the line in the sand and that starting a blog would be an excellent way to share the journey and milestones and raise awareness of the impact of AHPs in CYP services.

I am hugely excited about the opportunities that this can create for AHPs working in CYP services but more importantly for the potential outcomes for the CYP and families who we work with. The creation of this role highlights to me how far AHPs working with CYP have travelled in the last few years and I would like to share my personal journey with you. I trained as a physiotherapist and once qualified I was not aware that there was even a career path as a Paediatric Physiotherapist! I don’t recall children being mentioned at all during my training and for me it was more good luck than good management that I developed the knowledge, skills and expertise to become a Paediatric Physiotherapist.

I had the opportunity in 2009 to present at a national conference reflecting on my journey; it was no accident that the title of my presentation was “How did I get here?” However, once into paediatrics I was hooked and to this day my driver is to make a difference to the children I work with although this is now from a strategic rather than hands on perspective.

 Fortunately things have progressed significantly and in 2009 myself and my colleague Pauline Beirne took the lead in the development of “The Children’s Chapter; An Educational Framework for AHPs Working With Children & Young People and the development of the Children & Young People’ Managed Knowledge Network

This was funded by the National Delivery Plan  for Specialist Children’s Services which also saw the creation of a number of new and specialist roles for AHPs working in CYP services which are now beginning to demonstrate a direct impact on patient care.

So what about the next 2 years? Scotland’s focus on children and their development has never been higher; the Scottish Government wants Scotland to be the best place for children to grow up and there is huge commitment to this via the Early Years Collaborative and Getting it Right for Every Child. For AHPs we have been given a great opportunity to influence this both locally and nationally and the development of a transformational AHP CYP Plan will enable a sustainable, equitable and national model of delivery to be provided to the children and young people who access AHP services.

Back to the initial questions 2 years can make as big or small difference as we wish it to be. Personally I feel that a huge difference can be made in that time and I plan to share some of that journey through blogging.

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