Clinical
Just like Florence’s lamp, this lady is hoping to shine a light on well-needed resources for children and families with health needs. Just as Flo walked the wards, these stories aim to walk alongside families dealing with long-term conditions, explaining and supporting as they go. Similarly to the data queen that was Nurse Nightingale, we hope to gather evidence around these creative but impactful and low-cost resources for our children and families.
Laura is an experienced clinical nurse specialist in children and young people's asthma. She has worked in various places and with very different populations in her career to date, but has always noticed the same issue, time and time again: no one knows what asthma is.
An established freelance writer for a number of journals [such as Chemist & Druggist, Journal of Prescribing Practice, the Journal of General Practice Nursing and more recently for Allergy UK's winter edition of "Allergy Today" magazine*] Laura has a passion for sharing knowledge, experience and lessons learned.
After writing and illustrating The Lady and The Thing, Laura realised that she could create the resources she had craved for so long, and formally illustrate (with watercolours and pencils, of course) the diagrams she scribbled on the back of continuation sheets in clinic every time she saw a new family. Laura is passionate about working with children and families to understand asthma, what it is, what it means, and how they can live symptom-free whilst caring for their lungs to the best of their ability.
Laura decided to take some of the analogies she used in consultations, and apply her fantastically creative brain to the ideas. Out came some magical stories that helped children understand what was happening.
* Allergy Today | Allergy UK | National Charity
Listen to their podcast here: Allergy Insights Podcast - Episode 4: Allergen reduction measures in cleaning | Free Listening on Podbean App
You can read some of her clinical publications here:
Journal of General Practice Nursing (GPN) - Article: Getting the most from children and young people’s asthma reviews - Journal of General Practice Nursing (journalofpracticenursing.co.uk)
You can learn more about asthma below:
