Caroline studied BSc Nutrition and Dietetics, graduating in 2012. She is now the Allied Health Professions (AHP) Strategic Lead for West Yorkshire. In this blog, she tells us what she enjoyed about her course at Leeds Beckett and how it helped her achieve her amazing career in health.

Course: BSc (Hons) Dietetics

Tell us a bit about yourself and what you've been doing since you graduated.

I graduated from Leeds Beckett University as a Dietitian in 2012. Despite having limited awareness or knowledge of mental health, I started in my first post as a Dietitian in South West Yorkshire Foundation Trust, working as a mental health dietitian.

I didn't know what to expect but very quickly, I realised I loved this area of dietetics and that I wanted to continue working and specialising in this area.

I moved across to another mental health trust the following year - Leeds and York Partnership Foundation Trust - and continued my career journey in mental health. During my time working clinically as either a Band 5 or 6 Dietitian, I worked across inpatient and community mental health settings, rehabilitation and recovery, forensics, crisis services and chronic fatigue.

As a Dietitian in mental health, it was often within my role to scope dietetic services and write business cases for further development, something which potentially shaped my next career step.

After a few years of working as a Dietitian, I began my MSc Nutrition at LBU, alongside working full-time (and at the later stages, while pregnant with twins). This gave me an opportunity to develop my project management and leadership skills.

I began working in a role as AHP Practice Learning and Development Lead, initially as a part-time secondment (temporary role), which evolved into a full-time, permanent position. Within this role I managed the AHP preceptorship programme, the Occupational Therapy (OT) Rotation and lead on AHP practice-education in the Trust.

In addition to my paid roles as a Dietitian, I've also volunteered for the BDA Mental Health Specialist Group as a committee member. In the past this has been as the Education Officer, and I now hold the role of Treasurer.

Tell us a bit more about your current role and why it's amazing.

In my current role as AHP Faculty Strategic Lead, I work across the whole of West Yorkshire with a focus on Allied Health Professional education and workforce. This role includes dietetics, but also supports the other AHPs working within health and social care. In this role, I work with individuals from NHS organisations, local authorities, voluntary and private sector, universities and the Integrated Care Board.

For the best care to be provided to patients, we have to ensure that there is a health and social care workforce there to support them, and that staff feel cared for and supported too. My role involves many aspects such as:

• Careers promotion: promoting allied health professional careers to those considering a role in health and social care
• Practice-education: meeting the need for placements (an essential part of any university course or apprenticeship to become an AHP)
• Preceptorship: the support offered to support transition into practice e.g. for newly qualified staff or international recruits
• Workforce development: this can span a whole range of things but often focuses on how we can support and develop AHP staff so that they enjoy working in healthcare and have development opportunities

I love my job because, even though I no longer work clinically as a Dietitian, I can still see the link between the work that I do and quality of care that patients receive.

How did your course at Leeds Beckett help you get to where you are today?

The Nutrition and Dietetic course, along with my MSc in Nutrition, gave me the skills, knowledge and experience to be able to work as a Dietitian and progress in my career. One of the most valuable aspects were the placements within my undergraduate course as they made the teaching in lecturers come to life. Placements are very practical and really suited my way of learning.

What support or opportunities did you receive at Leeds Beckett that have helped shaped your career?

One of the key opportunities which has helped shape my career, has been the connection to the course and university, even after qualifying. Since completing both my undergraduate and masters at LBU, I still engage with the dietetics team.

This has been through additional opportunities such as guest lecturing. In the past, I used to provide a guest lecture on dietetics in mental health and still do a session once a year on preceptorship and clinical supervision.

In addition, I've also supported dietetic interviews at the university which was a great opportunity to connect with individuals aspiring to be Dietitians.

Can you tell us about a project, piece of work or experience from university that you're proud of?

It's been a little while now, but one of the pieces of work I'm still really proud of, is my dissertation project for my masters. This was focused on dietetics students and awareness of mental health. This project is something that I was really passionate about and definitely shaped my career journey and my desire to continue to be involved with the British Dietetic Association (BDA) mental health specialist group.

Although I no longer work clinically, I continue to support dietetics placements. Again, I wonder whether my masters dissertation influenced my decision to continue supporting student placements.

What would you say to someone considering studying your course?

Training to be a Dietitian was probably one of the best decisions I ever made. It's given me so many opportunities, with many of those being ones I didn't expect initially.

When I decided to take that first step on the journey to become a dietitian, it was from a combination of my interests, values and desire to work with people. Even though my role looks very different to the role I thought I'd be doing, it wouldn't have been possible, without my qualification as a Dietitian.

What's next for you?

My role as AHP Faculty Strategic Lead has only been a permanent role for just under one year so my current aim is to remain in this role but continue to develop what we can do to support the AHP workforce and education.

Outside of my current role, I'm due to go back to University later this year to complete a Postgraduate Certificate in Health Education. This is something I've considered over the past few years and I'm excited to get back into education again.