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Clair Galligan
Clair is a Dietetic Assistant practitioner at Birmingham Community Healthcare (BCHC) NHS Foundation Trust. Read below her thoughts and experiences of working as an AHP support worker practitioner.
My current role includes working as part of the prescribe and support team, delivering Food First training to care home staff across the city of Birmingham. This training covers nutrition, hydration, and MUST information appropriate to the setting needs. I work closely with the care homes to support them with meeting nutrition and hydration standards. I have developed resources such as presentations, training packs, information flyers and e-learning.
I had always had an interest in nutrition and working within the nutrition department for almost 20 years, gave me an opportunity to engage my passion. Over the years I have worked on a variety of initiatives, offering training sessions in the community to support individuals, groups and settings in nutrition and hydration, to make appropriate changes to their lifestyle and practice. This has included under-fives; schools, community groups, weight management, hospitals and care homes.
Over the years BCHC have supported me to achieve two National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ’s), one in nutrition and one in weight management. As well as supporting me to gain my adult teaching certificate, along with various role specific training including X-PERT health diabetes education.
During the pandemic we created an online training package for care homes in the city. I put together a resource pack to complement the training, engaging homes and giving training access to over 100 care homes.
I am proud of being able to work with and complement the wider community dietetic team. With such a variety of training offered, I have increased my confidence, knowledge and skills around nutrition to improve the quality of my training. This has enabled me to provide greater information, support and guidance to community settings to assist people to make better choices both for themselves and those they care for.
This role has given me an opportunity to increase my knowledge around nutrition, while working as part of a team in a varied, interesting and flexible environment. I can follow my passion and help others at the same time.