University of Brighton lecturer, Lisa Ford, shortlisted for 2025 Student Nursing Times Awards

Lisa Ford has been shortlisted for the award for her development of an innovative student placement initiative.

As a senior lecturer, Lisa is familiar with the struggle of finding placements for student nurses. She also understands there is an under provision of community care and as such developed the WOW project to create placement opportunities for student nurses whilst helping the local community.

"Finding placement locations for 2,300 hours of experiential learning can be challenging, especially for our child nursing students. However, with my background as a community nurse looking after children at home, I am aware of the existing gap in community care, and I was keen to see how we could explore that as a placement opportunity. That is what inspired the WOW project, and I am thrilled we were able to bring it to life." - Lisa Ford.

As part of the project, student nurses were assigned to parents caring for children and attended weekly home visits to gain insight into their experience.

Lisa and the other shortlisted nominees will be presenting their projects to a panel of judges on the 25th of March and the winner will be announced at the Student Nursing Times Awards ceremony on Friday 2 May 2025.