Julie Critcher

SAPHNA Senior Leadership Team member and SAPHNA Committee Member.

I qualified as a nurse in 1982 and began my career in Accident and Emergency Nursing, initially working days and then having had children returned onto nights. I firmly believe that this experience provided me with some excellent transferable skills for school nursing, for example, the ability to manage complex and uncertain situations, when you visit a school or a family home you are never certain what may be shared or what you will be exposed to.

I chose to move into school nursing in September 1994 and started my career as a Band 5 staff nurse. The role was predominantly screening children in Years 1, 3 and 6 with some classroom based public health delivery. I completed my Diploma in Nursing and then undertook the BSc (Hons) SCPHN School Nurse pathway in 2001-2002. I became a Band 6 School Nurse and then a Team Leader, undertook my Post Graduate Certificate in Professional Education in 2005 to achieve Practice Teacher status. I had a combined role as Team Leader, Practice Teacher and was seconded to Canterbury Christ Church University for 1 day a week to lecture on the SCPHN programme.

 During 2017-2018 I was the Acting Clinical Lead for the service and in April 2018 TUPE’d the service to a new provider, this experience enabled me to be fully engaged with the Commissioners and the new service provider. Following the TUPE I moved to an outer London Borough as a Clinical Service Lead and Practice Teacher, where I had responsibility for the clinical aspect of the service and some case load responsibility. As a team we reviewed some of the processes and made changes to, for example, the Health Needs Assessment framework ensuring that the focus was on the child/young person.

In February 2022 I moved into a lecturing role on the SCPHN programme and am currently Course Director for the University Certificate for Community Public Health Nurses, this is a short course for Band 5 nurses working in school nursing or health visiting teams.

I have an interest in children and young people who are managing long term health conditions, some of this stems from personal experience. In 2006 I was honoured to be nominated by a parent of a young person I had been supporting for a Well Child award and received the Best Community Practitioner award.

I believe strongly in the ethos of early intervention and supporting children, young people, families, education, and other partners to intervene early to support and manage situations to prevent them escalating.

I have been a SAPHNA committee member for many years, in November 2023 I was appointed to 1 of the Deputy Professional Office roles.

Twitter: @J_Critcher