Lots of interesting things to relate in this post. November 13th saw Nicola Evans and me join Hayley Reed, Ed Janes, fellow-researchers Rhiannon Evans, Nina Jacob, Rhys Bevan-Jones and (most importantly) members of the mightily impressive ALPHA group at an ESRC Festival of Social Science-funded public engagement event focusing on young people and mental health. Organised with the help of SciSCREEN, the evening was hosted at Cardiff University’s Hadyn Ellis Building and began with a viewing of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Post-film and post-food saw groups of young people, ALPHA members and researchers disappearing into interactive workshops. Nicola and I facilitated a discussion on supporting young people returning to school following a period of care in mental health hospital. This is a theme very much arising from our RiSC study, and in our session ideas and energy were in abundance. Interested readers wanting more on the work of ALPHA can see their video here:

November 17th was the School of Healthcare Sciences’ annual postgraduate research student symposium. This was, as usual, an excellent showcase for the PhDs and Professional Doctorates ongoing in the School. Follow this link for information on individual students and their projects.

I’ll write more about this in a separate post, but on Thursday November 19th, in Cardiff City Hall I was pleased to receive the Research in Nursing Award for 2015 at the Royal College of Nursing in Wales Nurse of the Year event. I appreciated very much the kind messages from esteemed friends and colleagues received via Twitter, text and email. I am particularly happy to have won this award as a mental health nurse, again being reminded of the need for investment in both mental health services and in research to find out what helps.

• Mental health
• Nursing
• People
• Research