Meet our new violence reduction lead nurse
This week we caught up with Paige Brown, the new violence reduction lead nurse at Barts Health. Paige’s role is being piloted by Barts Health across The Royal London, Newham and Whipps Cross hospitals. She gave us some insight into her role.
“I’ve lived in east London since 2019 and although I was born in north London, I grew up in Northampton. There’s a constant sound of sirens and news of young children being stabbed or shot. Some of my own family have been victims of gang violence and in some instances been the perpetrators. People around me have been in the criminal justice system and I want to make a difference, and do what I can to reduce violence.
“My background is in mental health. I qualified in 2014 and previously worked in Harrow Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service as a team manager. I’m excited to bring my understanding and experience in mental health to this role.
“My job is to lead and co-ordinate the violence reduction programme and support staff who have been assaulted at work. There’s already so many little pockets of great violence reaction work going on behind the scenes, but I hope I can help pull all the strands together and improve communication between teams.
“The role was previously funded by Barts Charity but I’m the first person to pilot being funded by the trust. I’ve been in the role seven weeks now and already started making some positive changes. I’ve created a MS teams group for the violence reduction network, which will give people access to different support groups. I’m looking into how I can open this up for everyone to join. I hope this group will identify more people who need to be part of the network and allow us to look at violence trends on staff and offer support based on that.
“I will work closely with staff, hospital psychologists, partners and St Giles Trust. I hope this, alongside my stakeholder and community work, will improve relationships and build on the collaborative network and a better understanding of how we can help young people affected by violent crime.
“I’m excited to be one of the only violence reduction nurses in the UK. The role is currently a six month, part-time position and I’ll be working across the three sites Tuesday to Thursday.”
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