Sebastian Birch joins Mental Health Nursing team at Roehampton

  • Friday, November 6, 2020

Sebastian Birch has joined the University of Roehampton’s growing Mental Health Nursing education team as a Senior Lecturer in Mental Health Nursing, following the launch of our BSc (Hons) Mental Health Nursing and MSci Adult and Mental Health Nursing.

Image - Sebastian Birch joins Mental Health Nursing team at Roehampton

Prior to joining Roehampton, Sebastian was working in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Emergency Care Services (CAMHS); a nurse led team working in South West London, assessing young people attending A&E in a mental health crisis. Most recently this included providing urgent support to young people following the onset of COVID-19.

Sebastian has a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh and a Master’s degree in Critical Theory. He was however inspired to study nursing for two reasons. Firstly, his father was an intensive care charge nurse and Sebastian loved the sense of pride his father had in his work. Secondly, after volunteering as an undergraduate he admired the way that nurses help those with mental health issues, and their dedication to each individual person. Sebastian continues to combine his academic interests and is currently also completing a PhD at Goldsmiths University in Psychoanalytic Studies, researching the concept of contagion of self-harm in adolescents.

On joining Roehampton, Sebastian has said he’s excited to join a new Nursing Education team with two new mental health nursing programmes, as there’s so much opportunity to teach and conduct research in agile and exciting ways.

For anyone considering a career in mental health nursing, Sebastian said “never forget that we are people working with someone who is quite possibly at the worst moment of their life. We have the ability to make that better with just our presence; if you think that is something you can do then I welcome you as a colleague!”

The University of Roehampton offers an MSci in Adult and Mental Health Nursing, a BSc (Hons) in Adult Nursing and a BSc (Hons) in Mental Health Nursing.