Teen health guide is a double winner for Sylvia
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A WICK-based Highland physiotherapist has received two further awards for her work on creating a leaflet on pelvic floor health awareness for teenagers and young people.
Sylvia Craine, who is clinical specialist physiotherapist for continence based at Caithness General Hospital, worked on the leaflet with staff from other health boards.
They also worked with high school students to ensure it was right for young people.
Earlier this year the leaflet was awarded the Association for Continence Advice "pelvic floor special interest" award and the team that created it has now won two accolades in the 2011 Nursing Times Awards.
The entry – entitled "By Teenagers for Teenagers: engaging teenage girls in an innovative approach to pelvic floor health promotion" – was announced as the winner in the continence promotion and care and the child, adolescent, maternity and neonatal services categories.
Mrs Craine said: "The leaflet is unique in that its design and format has been developed by teenagers for teenagers. It provides them with simple advice and exercises to strengthen and promote the health of the pelvic floor for young women.
"By getting teenage girls involved, we were able to ensure that the leaflet really meets the needs of teenagers and is tailored to what they want."
She continued: "One in four adult women suffers with bladder weakness and leakage at some point in their lives, so we felt that by targeting girls at a younger age we could equip them with the skills to keep their pelvic floors strong for the future."
She added that everyone involved in the leaflet is delighted with the awards it has attracted.
"We were pleased with the first award and even more pleased to receive two more and it was an added bonus to receive one of our awards from Scotland’s chief nursing officer Ros Moore," she explained.
"There were 842 applications for 17 categories in the Nursing Times Awards so we were surprised to be short-listed and absolutely amazed and over the moon to discover that we had won two categories."
The winners were announced at an awards ceremony held at London’s Hilton Hotel and attended by more than 800 health professionals on November 2.
Pauline Craw, who is locality general manager for Caithness, said: "I was absolutely delighted to hear about this award as Sylvia has put a lot of hard work into this project and we are all very proud of her achievement."
Mrs Craine worked on the leaflet with Liz Howard-Thornton, of NHS North Lancashire, Clare Holden, of NHS Central Lancashire, and Gill Pearl, from PromoCon, a Manchester-based charity working with people with bladder and bowel problems. The students involved in this work attend a high school in Lancashire.
The leaflet is now being distributed via the Association for Continence Advice, which can be contacted at www.aca.uk.com, and it can be viewed online at http://content.yudu.com/Library
It is also planned to distribute the leaflets through school nurses, health promotion departments and GP surgeries in the near future.
