Dr Nicola Evans
Reader: Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Psychosocial Care
- evansng@cardiff.ac.uk
- +44(0) 29 206 87298
- 13.15, 13th floor, Eastgate House, 35-43 Newport Road, Cardiff CF24 0AB
- Available for postgraduate supervision
Overview
I am a Reader in Mental Health Nursing with expertise in the mental health of children and young people. I enjoy teaching and supervising undergraduate and post graduate students and currently have capacity for new doctoral students interested in either mental health or qualitative methods. I am also a BACP accredited counsellor having trained in both systemic family therapy and CBT.
My PhD was an action research study with a local children's mental health service where we worked together to reduce their unsatisfactory waiting list for their service, using a bespoke triage model (http://www.fons.org/library/journal/volume4-issue1/article7) .
Biography
Prior to working at Cardiff University, I worked in clinical practice as a mental health nurse in an outpatient service for children and young people with mental health needs.
Previously, I have also worked in forensic mental health care, both inpatient and community services, as well as in a general mental health admission unit. Having trained in CBT for Children and Adolescents and in systemic family therapy, I worked therapeutically with children, parents, adults and families in the context of multi-disciplinary and multi-agency teams.
Publications
We are currently unable to retrieve the list of publications. Visit our institutional repository.Teaching
I contribute to the undergraduate nursing programme, specifically teaching children's mental health issues, psychotherapeutic approaches, use of evidence in health and research methods. I also supervise dissertations. I enjoy small group teaching and facilitating experiential learning sessions for mental health nursing students to acquire and rehearse their much needed skills for clinical practice.
At post graduate level, I supervise MSc dissertations: systematic reviews and work based projects. This can be across topic area. I also lead a professional doctorate module: Systems thinking: working and leading in complex organisations.
I am a qualitative researcher, interested and experienced in case study methodology, action research and ethnographic methods, having been awarded the RCN (Wales) Research in Nursing award in 2017. I also am interested in conducting systematic reviews, and am trained in Joanna Briggs Institute methods. An example of a completed reviewcommissioned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists is here: https://journals.lww.com/jbisrir/Fulltext/2018/10000/Admission_and_discharge_criteria_for_adolescents.2.aspx
Blueprint was an NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research Programme funded project which looked at services for children and young people with common mental health problems: https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/programmes/hsdr/170908
RiSC looked at the evidence how risk is assessed and managed in inpatient services for young people with mental health issues http://www.nets.nihr.ac.uk/projects/hsdr/11102408
CAMH Crisis was an evidence synthesis investigating how services are provided for children and young people aged 5 -25 experiencing mental health crises. Please feel free to view the animation devevloped from that study: https://youtu.be/awgTJGK21Is
I also am connected to the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Malawi where we worked together on a project to upskill primary school teachers about mental health in children https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1755-6228/vol/16/iss/6
Supervision
I am interested insupervising PhD students in the areas of:
mental health
children and young people's mental health
qualitative methods
the organisation of health and social care
