ALLEN O'CONNOR

MSc, BSc, DipHE, RNMH, AFHEA

Allen has 14 years of clinical experience in several specialist and leadership Mental Health Nursing roles, and he has recently commenced a lecturing role at Edge Hill University. Allen is keen to participate in academic research once he’s established himself as a lecturer.

The focus of Allen’s clinical experience has been in community rehabilitation settings, mainly working with psychosis, anxiety and mood disorders. In addition, Allen has worked as an Acting Registered Manager and Acting Clinical Manager, having overall responsibility for two hospitals across the North West for a large mental health and learning disability charity.  

After qualifying as a Mental Health Nurse in January 2010, Allen returned to university first to complete a BSc in Psychosocial Interventions for Psychosis, then later an MSc in Advanced Practice Interventions in Mental Health. Allen also completed a level 6 university module in Nursing Mentorship and later a level 7 module in Professional Nurse Advocacy.

Allen has delivered therapeutic interventions including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Psychosis (CBTp), Family Intervention for psychosis (FI) and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). He is passionate about the implementation of psychosocial interventions and would like to see more Nurses develop their skills around the use of talking therapies in the future.

Since starting as an academic member of staff at Edge Hill University, Allen has achieved his D1 status with Advance HE (AFHEA) and is working towards his D2 status (FHEA) through the institution's PGCTHE qualification.  

The implementation of Family Intervention for psychosis including cognitive, behavioural and psychoeducational approaches. Despite its recommendation and praise within the NICE guidelines for psychosis, uptake and delivery of Family Interventions remains far too low in clinical practice.

The use of board and card games as a tool to improve communication skills and socialisation in the psychosis population. Allen has observed such improvements anecdotally in clinical practice, but so little is written about the topic currently highlighting a need for further research.