Today is Thursday, and it is our second day at Birmingham City University! It was another early wake up call, and we left for BCU at 8:30 this morning. Before our lesson, a few of us purchased some BCU hoodies, “jumpers” as the British would say. We were in a different room than Tuesday, and this one was much smaller. Our first lecture was from a school nurse, which is an entirely different role over here in England than it is back in the United States of America. In England, school nurse is not a protected title, which means that anyone can call themselves a school nurse, even if they are not actually a qualified nurse. 

The school nurses over here are not actually based in schools, but rather in community nursing. If a certain factor is going to eventually have a negative impact on the overall health and well being of an individual, the school nurses are going to try to help alleviate some of the pressure in order to improve the quality of their lives. This kind of ties back into what we learned at the James Brindley Academy yesterday. The government, community, and school all play a part in protecting the child’s health. In each area, the government assesses the community and releases the information they want the health visitors and school nurses to provide the local families with, and this allows them to develop a plan to help promote public health in the community.

Here in the United Kingdom, more specifically England, there are healthcare workers called health visitors, that work with children from birth until they are school aged, or around 5 years old. The health visitors and the school nurses work together to create a seamless transition from early years to school age. The school nurse will take over the role of the health visitor and work with the child and their family from age 5 until after they are all done with their education. The school nurses have many different roles, but ones that specifically stood out to me included mental health and oral hygiene. In my school, I only ever went to the school nurse to be treated for physical symptoms. Any time I experienced stress or anxiety in school, I had to manage it on my own. I think school nurses providing students with proper coping mechanisms and ways to manage their anxiety can really boost morale and encourage students to keep working hard and being successful. 

I also was shocked to find out that the school nurses here in England help students with dental hygiene. I can not speak for all schools in the United States, but at my school, our school nurses never even mentioned dental or oral care to us. The nurses here are able to educate both students and their families on proper brushing techniques to keep their teeth healthy and clean. We were told that good dental hygiene prevents the falling out or decay of teeth, which then ensures the ability to enunciate and speak well, which is a critical skill in order for a good life outcome. Since dental hygiene promotes good outcomes, the school and government want to provide that knowledge to the students. 

A similarity between England and the United States I noticed was the inaccessibility of mental and physical health care to those who suffer financially. We learned that our home state of Pennsylvania has a program called CHIP, which allows students enrolled in school to receive healthcare almost free of cost. In order for their child to receive coverage from CHIP, a parent must fill out the form and then their child can get the care they need. England’s NHS system is similar, they must go register at a General Practitioner and then they are covered by the NHS. If the family is living in poverty, however, they may not have access to technology to sign up, or they may not even know these services are available to them. Even our group, who all go to school in Pennsylvania, had little to no knowledge about CHIP, and we are all fortunate enough to be able to attend college, so perhaps with more advocacy and public knowledge about CHIP, Pennsylvania could increase the amount of people able to get the healthcare they need. 

After the school nursing, we had a short break for lunch before we got to learn about mental health nursing here in England. We got a history lesson at the beginning of the lecture before we dove into mental health nursing. Our presenters also talked to us about the growing use and dangers of fentanyl drug use in Europe, which is also an issue in the United States as well. The history lesson talked a lot about the origin of the vast diversity here in Birmingham, and tied into the mental health nursing, as it is important to understand someone’s background and their life experience in order to understand their struggles and distress. 

During our psych lecture, we learned about the Drug Centered Model, which allows us to demedicalise the patient and view them as more than just their disease. It also enables it to adopt a more biopsychosocial approach, and to let the patient take some control of the care. Often when mental health patients are taken to the hospital, it is against their will, and causes them to feel as if they are no longer in control of their life. Giving them some control back could potentially make them more keen to treatment, and can reduce some of the stigma that comes with a mental health diagnosis.

After we finished at BCU, we went on a 2 hour tour of Birmingham, learning about the city from the perspective of the Windrush generation. We have talked about the Windrush Generation before, but it was really interesting to walk around the city and hear specifics about them. For dinner, we went to a Jamaican restaurant. Tomorrow, we will be visiting Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College in Birmingham, having a session at BCU, and then heading to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, which we are all super excited about. Stay tuned!