Why our organisation is the right one to manage this project

We are unique! Our team is made up of two Specialist Community Public Health School Nurses and a number of Paediatric Nurses. All the nurses in our team have a degree in Paediatric Nursing and experience of caring for children in hospital and in the community. We have experience previously working in the NHS School Nursing Service locally and this has built up our links within the health community. We are changing how School Nursing is viewed to show what we can do and how much impact we can have. Gaining charity funding would increase our impact by increasing our capacity to reach children and families and funding our development as a service. There are areas that we can't develop through existing funding and this is the next step we would like to take. Eventually we would like to offer this as a national offer. Our organisation is led by lived experience. Our experiences were the catalyst for developing the service and deciding to do things differently. This inequality is the focus of the service and addressing it is the fundamental aim. Having this lived experience is unique to us and has made us passionate to make a difference. The value of this project is the uniqueness of our skills. There are very few Specialist Community Public Health School Nurses in the UK and almost all work for Local Authority teams. Because we are passionate about making a difference we have completely changed how School Nursing services work. Our team are proactive and focus on early intervention. If a young person is referred to us we see them quickly, we support them to understand and build a toolbox of coping skills and then support them to put those skills into practice. We involve parents so that the interventions are sustained and parents can build their own skills and resilience. We involve school staff who tend to be present when issues occur and train them to know how to respond and how to apply the learning in practice. But we want to reach more children, and make more of a difference. This is why we are seeking funding. We can provide the skills, passion and experience but we need ways to do this that don't rely on tight school budgets. We know the local areas that need more support and we aim to target them. Our core aim is to have the most impact we can and help children reach their potential.