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- Qualifications:MSc BSc (Hons) Dip (Open) RN RM SCPHN (HV) PGCE PhD researcher
- Position:Senior Lecturer in Midwifery
- Department:HAS - Allied Health Professions
- Telephone:+4411732 81642
- Email:Anita2.Johnson@uwe.ac.uk
About me
I trained as a nurse in Canterbury, Kent, and a midwife in Bristol, in the 1980's, initially working in clinical practice within high-risk environments in London and Bath, and in the middle years the community environment working in low risk midwifery in the rural area of Somerset. This work led to a growing interest in public health and social inequality leading me to undertake a BSc(Hons) in Public Health and train as a Specialist Community Public Health Nurse (Health Visitor), at UWE, subsequently working even more closely with vulnerable families. I was fortunate to work on the 2007 research pilot of the Family Nurse Partnership in Somerset before national expansion, and I later took the knowledge and skills back into specialist midwifery roles which included setting up teenage pregnancy and mental health services, domestic abuse, and safeguarding adults and children, which I led for the maternity service. My MSc, Integrated Professional Development, (UWE), took my supervisory and safeguarding roles to a theoretical level and includes my PGCE in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
During these years I have been involved in small research projects which includes supporting mothers to read to their unborn babies in utero to improve attachment, mother's mental health and early speech and language development in conjunction with Bookstart, and a small study to explore the benefits of safeguarding supervision for midwifery students. I was a Supervisor of Midwives, a midwifery lecturer, and later a health and social care lecturer, before undertaking my PhD and returning as a midwifery lecturer.
Teenage motherhood is often portrayed negatively despite research suggesting otherwise and the life experience beyond the teenage years remains an under explored area. By looking deeper at 'teenage motherhood' as experienced and lived by women who were formerly 'teenage mums' my PhD study aims to make the real life experiences of teenage mothers central to our understanding of motherhood. Life stories told through the Free Association Narrative Method, and supported by semi-structured interviews, are being undertaken with women who have been teenage mothers between 1960 -2010. By sharing real life experiences over this period, it will help to understand the wider shifts that may have shaped their experiences over the life course, and to challenge the negative trajectories that exist.
Having worked with the public all my professional life my interest lies in the lived experience, and I enjoy people telling me their stories, whoever they are and in whatever capacity. I would like to do further research into other areas of motherhood including progressing other studies which impact on people's lives for the better.
Area of expertise
Low risk midwifery, public health, safeguarding women and children, supervision, teenage motherhood.
Publications
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