Staff

Dr Theresa Shaw NursD, BA (Hons) Nursing Education, RNT, RN
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Theresa is passionate about nursing and enabling nurses to flourish as caring, knowledgeable and skilled practitioners for the benefit of patients. She is proud of the work FoNS has contributed to this and believes combining her role as CEO with that of Practice Development Facilitator is key to informing both the strategic direction of FoNS and maintaining its charitable commitments to developing nursing practice and improving patient experience of care. Her doctoral research ‘A qualitative exploration of nurses experiences of being involved in practice development’ also offers an important view into the impact of practice development and service improvement activity and ways in which such work can be effective and maintain momentum. 

Theresa is a Registered Nurse and Registered Nurse Teacher. She worked in the NHS for 17 years during which time her experience spanned clinical nursing, nurse education and practice development. Whilst her clinical expertise lies in the field of Cardio-thoracic Nursing, Theresa has worked with and supported nurses and nurse-led teams across healthcare practice. She has also held several External Examiner positions for academic institutions and chaired the NICE Guideline Development Group for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Theresa is currently a member of the International Advisory Board for the journal Nurse Education in Practice; is a specialist advisor to KT-EQUAL and is regularly invited to speak locally and nationally on enabling practice based development and research in nursing. She is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Canterbury Christ Church University, England, UK.

Kate Sanders, MSc, BSc (Hons), RHV, RN
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Kate joined FoNS as a Practice Development Facilitator over 10 years ago. Prior to this she worked in a variety of acute and community settings where she became increasingly interested and active in practice development. At FoNS, Kate works as an external facilitator to support nurses, midwives and health visitors across healthcare practice to develop their knowledge and skills in facilitating and evaluating sustainable improvement and change. She has led a number of practice development programmes and now works across all FoNS activities. Kate also actively represents FoNS through a range of national and international events and initiatives.

Over the last couple of years, Kate has led on the development of and now has editorial repsonsibility for the FoNS Centre for Nursing Innovation; she is also the Managing Editor of the new International Practice Development Journal. 

Kate is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University, England, UK.

Rebecca Hellmuth BA (Hons)
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Rebecca joined the FoNS team back in November 2010 as the Office and Fundraising Administrator. Rebecca works 'behind the scenes' at FoNS to ensure a smooth running of the office activities and provides support to the practice development facilitators with the programmes that they run. She also has an essential role ensuring that the FoNS virtual Centre for Nursing Innovation is up to date and she is the journal administrator for the new International Practice Development Journal.

Rebecca has previously worked in Advertising Sales for Radio and studied her degree at the University of Gloucestershire, graduating back in 2007. In 2010 Rebecca left the world of radio to pursue one of her dreams of volunteering for charities abroad; in both Africa and Cambodia. After teaching English in Cambodia and working in West Africa's Gambian community she went travelling around South East Asia before returning home in August 2010.