Professor Dawn Freshwater
PhD, BA(Hons), RGN, RNT, FRCN, DipPsych
Professor Dawn Freshwater currently holds a professorial position within IHCS at Bournemouth University in the UK. She was also recently appointed to the Research Chair at Peel Health Campus, Western Australia. In her role as Chair in Applied Research (Mental Health) at IHCS, she directs the Centre for Applied Research and has been the lead for the Academic Research Centre in Practice for Mental Health and Primary Care for the last five years. She is also visiting Professor at the University of Greenwich to Counselling and Psychotherapy Programmes in the School of Social Science.
Professor Freshwater undertook her training as a nurse in the UK 25 years ago and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Nursing and Education with Honours from Manchester University and the Royal College of Nursing. She received her doctorate in 1998 from the University of Nottingham and also holds a Diploma in Clinical Supervision (Counselling and Mental Health) and a Diploma in Jungian Psychotherapy. Since completing her advanced psychotherapy training she has been a registered UKCP psychotherapist and supervisor for five years, with over 15 years experience as a practitioner in the NHS and private practice, which she maintains today. Her most recent education was Senior Strategic Management/Leadership Programme with the Leadership Foundation, Hefce in the UK.
In 2002 Professor Freshwater was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Nursing for her outstanding contribution to nursing through research, reflective practice, clinical supervision and practice development in mental health. In June 2004 at the 26th Annual Conference of the International Association for Human Caring Professor Freshwater was elected President of this Association. The central purpose of the IAHC is to serve as an international, scholarly forum for all interested in the advancement of the knowledge of human care and caring. Professor Freshwater is also an active member of Sigma Theta Tau; she received the Distinguished Researcher Award in 2000 and developed the recent publication on Reflective Practice along with the reflective practice taskforce. Dawn is also an executive member of the Florence Nightingale Foundation, where she sits on the research scholarship panel.
Professor Freshwater’s interest in research has resulted in an in-depth exploration of the use of qualitative research methods, particularly reflexive and narrative research methods. Since the early 1990s Dawn has maintained an interest in the application and evaluation of transformational research, critical reflexivity, pragmatism, reflective practice and clinical supervision, and in particular its relation to evidence-based practice and the therapeutic alliance. This has led to the development and appraisal of a variety of approaches to evaluating the provision and delivery of health care, with particular emphasis on Mental Health. Her most recent research has led to the implementation of a Mental Health Awareness Training package for Prison Officers being adopted by Prisons throughout the UK. She currently leads the national implementation of clinical supervision across the prison estate. Professor Freshwater led the high-profile Princess Diana Children’s nursing research that aimed to improve the quality of life for children with life-limiting illness. She is external reviewer for the Forensic Mental Health Fellowships and sits on a number of international grant review panels.
In Australia Professor Freshwater was invited to serve on the Expert Review Committee of the Australian Primary Health Care Institute. The Institute is an initiative of the Australian Government as part of its Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development Strategy. She has also been invited to disseminate her research findings to the Australian Psychological Society and has already established a number of collaborative ventures with industry partners. Funded research within Australia includes an ARC grant related to the impact of the ageing workforce in South West, WA; establishing a community intervention for suicide prevention in young men in rural Western Australia and developing a care pathway for patients diagnosed with cancer in rural and regional Western Australia.
As a writer, Dawn has authored/edited 12 books, some of which have been translated into different languages, including Italian, Hebrew and Chinese, with a further two due for publication in 2006. She has been a primary contributor to a number of other books and has authored over 100 peer-reviewed papers and co-edited texts relating to innovative research methods, practice improvement, reflective practice and therapeutic nursing. Her research income to date exceeds ₤1million. Dawn was appointed Editor of Blackwell’s prestigious international journal The Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing in 2004.
In her role as research supervisor, she has successfully supervised several Doctoral and Masters students through to completion and is committed to developing others’ talents through high quality teaching, research and supervision. She is delighted to have the opportunity to work in a novel and visionary joint international approach with colleagues in the School of Nursing at Murdoch, University of North Carolina, University of Texas and to create important links not only with clinical practitioners, but also with the community as a whole.