As part of their Diploma in Education and Training course at Bournemouth and Poole College, students from a wide variety of backgrounds and fields of work have had to write schemes of work and lesson plans, and deliver assessed lessons or teaching sessions. Mine were all diabetes-focused sessions written for the new Poole College Clinic, which was set up to engage with students in our transition service who attended the college but sometimes found it tricky to come to clinic at Poole Hospital. Previously, I had set up senior school clinics in Rochdale and Morecambe Bay, and these seemed to work well. Therefore, I decided to try it in Poole with this transition-aged group of 15–23-year-olds. Together with the local College Nurse, Christina Peacock, and Linda Burles, our admin assistant, I wrote an article about setting up the college clinics in 2016 (Peacock et al, 2016).
The Poole College clinics were set up with Christina Peacock, who helped with resources and lesson plans for a number of sessions. She also helped with finding suitable rooms for the monthly clinics and texting students with diabetes to remind them to drop into the college clinic each month. The college clinics look at all the topics to be covered in the With You All The Way Goals for Diabetes Education programme. The older age bracket in this programme has many more topics than the younger age groups, and so it will take around 2 years to cover all the topics in monthly sessions, and some of the topics will be covered each year with a seasonal focus.
In the first year, drug company reps have helped us with the clinics by sponsoring a meal-deal sandwich lunch for 10–12 students each month. I asked a different rep to sponsor one term at a time so that costs weren’t so expensive for each rep. This worked well, and this year we have been successful in a grant application, which helps us to continue to fund the lunches for students with diabetes and one or two of their friends.
Other people who need to be thanked include Anna Carling and the paediatric diabetes team from the Royal United Hospital in Bath, as I used four of their lesson plans as a template for my sessions. The template was subsequently used for all the other lesson plans, as it is simple and easy to follow and amend. Becky Martin and the paediatric diabetes team at University College London Hospitals have also helped with their marvellous web page and ideas. Finally, my thanks to Kath Barnard, Health Psychologist in Southampton, for other good ideas related to exams and blood glucose testing, and to Haley Faulds (Transition DSN in Southampton), who has written an excellent PowerPoint presentation on driving with diabetes, which I plan to use next year in the appropriate session.
Curriculum sharing
The National Children & Young People’s Diabetes Network has agreed to hold the lesson plans, schemes of work and resources on its website so that others can use them if they want to. Readers can access them here.
If you have any queries or good ideas or resources, please let me know at: Jo.dalton@poole.nhs.uk
