Churchill Fellowship for The Centre’s Sue

In order to continue providing first class services and support for people living with CP, The Centre for Cerebral Palsy employs some of the leading specialists in the provision of services for people with disabilities in the nation and encourages them to extend their knowledge and experience through on-going training, research and development.

Sue McCabe, Occupational Therapist at CP Tech, is one of these specialists and has recently spent seven weeks in the United Kingdom and Canada on a study tour as part of a Churchill Fellowship, and reports that she found the experience “amazing”!

Sue met with Educators, Paediatricians, Community workers, Psychologists and families who were all interested in learning more about the different ways we can help to manage sleep for people with disabilities. Sue said “the people I met were very generous in sharing their time and knowledge about this very important topic”.

 After attending a training course with ‘Sleep Scotland’, in Edinburgh, Sue also spent time with clinicians and researchers at Southampton Hospital, Chailey Heritage Centre in East Sussex, the Exeter/North Devon and Oxford regions, the McMasters Hospital in Hamilton, and the Sunny Hill Health Centre in Vancouver. Along the way Sue met a broad range of dedicated health professionals who were focused on learning about sleep, what can go wrong, and techniques that can help to manage this.

Some of the valuable research Sue learned about during her time overseas included:

• a study into the effects of sleep positioning systems on clients’ respiratory function during sleep,
• the development of a specialised sleep questionnaire for children with cerebral palsy and
• a study looking at how therapists choose and recommend the different types of equipment that can help with positioning for sleep .

Sue also learned about different equipment that is used in the UK and Canada to help provide postural support during sleep, with clinicians explaining why they choose between different options such as Symmetrisleep, Dreama, Chailey , Leckey and Moonlight systems.

After spending seven weeks in community health centres, hospitals and treatment centres with experts in the field of sleep and disability, Sue said she felt very privileged to have experienced such “a wonderful opportunity to look at the ways that the medical and therapy fields can work together to ensure that services are holistic and how research and clinical knowledge can be shared across disciplines and across the world”.

“Undertaking my Churchill Fellowship has taught me that strong communication networks need to be established, to ensure information is integrated for a holistic approach in finding solutions for what is most often a complex problem.”

Sue and her Sleep Solutions colleague, Linda Mercer have now developed an interagency ‘Sleep Interest Group’ that allows local clinicians from various agencies to meet to share their questions and knowledge about the complex area of sleep.

Sue is keen to share the information and experiences from her Churchill Fellowship  and encourages others to look at the wonderful opportunity that a Churchill Fellowship can provide.