Lundbeck Canada Inc. Mental Health Nursing Award

I started my career in nursing after working for a year as a volunteer in a children’s hospital. This first-hand experience allowed me to meet nurses and learn about their work in supporting and helping children and families, which convinced me to pursue a career as a nurse.  Already having a baccalaureate degree in a discipline other than nursing, I applied for a Masters entry-to-practice degree, and graduated from the program in 2010.  I initially started working as a nurse in youth mental health, and then as a clinical nurse specialist at the same mental health institute.

This generous award will enable me to contribute to the advancement of knowledge and practice in child mental health. I am particularly interested in examining ethical concerns that nurses and other healthcare professionals face when working in a child mental health context and find ways to address these preoccupations.  As a nurse, I have faced various ethical challenges, which triggered a profound interest in understanding such issues, as well as finding possible solutions to address them.

My doctoral thesis relates to crisis management with children in a mental health setting. I am examining what is currently done to manage crisis events, as well as how these situations ought to be managed from an ethical standpoint, taking into account the child’s perspective.  I pursue a participatory approach to research in which participants play an active role in the research process, and value research that has the potential to result in concrete practice change.