REPORT AWARDS
Fellowship Awards 2018
The Fellowship Awards are the highest honours that RCOT can bestow on its members in recognition of the outstanding contribution they have made to the occupational therapy profession during their career, and this year just one award has been made to Inga Warren, a pioneer who has made the most outstanding and critical contribution at a national and international level in the field of neonatology – transforming the care of babies born prematurely and the support given to their parents.
Inga qualified as an occupational therapist at Dorset House School of Occupational Therapy in Oxford, and later obtained an MSc in Child Psychology. She started her career in child and adolescent psychiatry, learning disability and neuropsychiatry at the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley hospitals, before becoming head paediatric occupational therapist at St Mary’ s London and commencing her specialisation in neonatology.
Three decades ago, the preoccupation of staff was to improve survival of ever smaller, preterm infants, and the focus was on ever more invasive technology and more aggressive intensive care.
Little regard was given to the needs of the babies themselves and their parents. Inga was the first occupational therapist to work on a UK neonatal unit after she had noticed how many of the children referred to her community occupational therapy service were born prematurely.
Inga became interested in the very early development of these vulnerable infants and the challenges seen at school age. She believed there must be a way to improve outcomes following early birth, and she was the first person
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To be a fellow of RCOT is something very special and I hope this award will highlight the valuable work we can do in neonatal units. There is so much yet to be done and I believe occupational therapist have a unique contribution to make towards improving the quality of life for infants and families, both during and after neonatal care.
in the UK, or anywhere outside the US, to qualify in the Newborn Individualised Developmental
Care and Assessment Program( NIDCAP), which is a quality controlled programme involving naturalistic observation of preterm infants with the modification of their environment and caregiving in order to support their brain development. This developmental
Inga Warren
approach to care is proven to improve neurodevelopment outcomes and is now widely used in the UK and, indeed, is considered the standard of care thanks to Inga’ s passion to improve the experience of neonatal care for infants and families.
She then became a senior trainer in NIDCAP enabling the opening of the UK NIDCAP training centre.
Inga is the primary author and founder of the Family and Infant Neurodevelopmental Education( FINE) programme, an educational and training pathway for all neonatal healthcare professionals, which has been translated into eight languages, with 10 international training centres established, and activity in 20 countries around the world. FINE is endorsed by the Royal College of Nursing and Midwifery.
In addition, Inga was a founding member of the Brazelton Centre UK, has organised national and international conferences on neonatology, is a leader in this field of research and has authored papers published in medical, nursing and therapy journals.
She is the co-author of Caring for your baby in the neonatal unit: a parents’ handbook. In 2004, Inga became the first consultant occupational therapist in neonatology and early intervention in the NHS.
She is a mentor, role model and inspiration for the current generation of neonatal occupational therapists. Without Inga’ s initiative, drive and commitment to improving the lives of preterm infants, and indeed willingness to challenge a whole health care system, the outcome of hundreds of children born prematurely in the UK and around the world would be very different.
Of receiving the honour she said:‘ To be a fellow of RCOT is something very special and I hope this award will highlight the valuable work we can do in neonatal units. There is so much yet to be done and I believe occupational therapist have a unique contribution to make towards improving the quality of life for infants and families, both during and after neonatal care.’
Patricia McClure( l) and Inga Warren
20 OTnews October 2018