Mental health nurse helps thousands of people

A mental health nurse who has helped thousands of people over the last 25 years has shared an insight into his work for Mental Health Nurses’ Day (21 February).

Clive Fowell is a Flow and Capacity lead for the Tendring Community Specialist Mental Health Team. The service is run by Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust.

Clive said: “What I enjoy most about my work is seeing that I have made a difference.

“Seeing people recover makes me want to keep doing what I do.”

Clive worked with people with learning disabilities and with children who had suffered trauma before starting his nurse training in 2000.

When he qualified as a nurse, he worked in mental health acute inpatient and rehabilitation wards at the Linden Centre and Edward House in Chelmsford, and the King’s Wood Centre and the former Severalls Hospital, both in Colchester.

He has worked in community mental health services since 2008.

Clive has led a number of initiatives to teach coping skills to people who have experienced trauma. They can use the techniques while they are waiting for, and in addition to, other psychological therapies.

One of the programmes Clive has been running for 14 years is the Systems Training for Emotional Predictability and Problem Solving (STEPPS) course.

The 13-week group education programme teaches people with emotionally unstable personality disorder about the condition and skills they can use to manage their emotions and behaviours.

Clive, who has taught the skills to hundreds of people, said: “There are some people who have experienced a mental health crisis and have used the skills they have learned to help themselves through it.”

More recently, he set up the trauma stabilisation group with colleagues in Colchester and Tendring.

They work with people who have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and help them learn relaxation and grounding skills, and how to manage stress.

Clive has also been working with his colleagues to offer more treatment and support options for patients, including one-to-one support and working with community organisations such as iCARP, who run therapeutic fishing programmes.