what kind of work do people do?

I’m a Mental Health Nurse, I work mainly in dementia care. I did my under grad in Psychology though I’m interested in most things brain related. I’d love to get back into studying Psychology to be honest but Nursing pays a wage and the children are far too young for me to even consider trying to study at postgraduate level for the foreseeable future.

Cool! You must have lots of academic knowledge about ASD then :) 

It's possible to do a part-time postgraduate, perhaps? To work while taking a couple of days off per week to do postgraduate stuff? 

And it's also a possibility to look forward to when your kids are grown up.

Unfortunately I don’t really have much academic knowledge of ASD. In terms of Psychology we studied a little bit about the link between Autism and Theory of mind in the 2nd year Social Psychology module. Psychology as a discipline is actually a very broad area and the undergraduate modules tend to cover quite general topics which form the foundation stones of knowledge for the more specific topics. I think Autism would be more suited to a PhD theses than to undergraduate study due to the high level of underpinning knowledge that would be required to ‘fully’ understand all the differences in brain function, thinking and behaviour. In terms of Nursing, Autism actually falls under Learning Disability Nursing and not Mental Health, so I’m not trained in the management of ASD. I do however have experience of working with Autistic children through my voluntary work in Scouting. It is possible to do a part time postgraduate course, over 8 years! I might just wait and do it when the children are adults though!

You're welcome and Thank You :-)

No problem! What you are saying sounds like an excellent plan. I'm glad to hear that you have such passion for learning! The person I know who is doing a part-time masters also has children, but her children are in school. It'll probably be easier to find time for yourself during the day when all your children are old enough to be in school. 

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense that MH and LD have a lot of cross-overs. And I guess those with ASD that require nursing support will most likely be those that have additional learning difficulties. 

Thanks for sharing your journey of how you became a MH nurse. It does sound like a lot of hard work to squeeze a 3 year course to a 2 year course. But you've clearly done an excellent job of getting your degree.

Thank you for letting me know about this. At the moment I can only do part time agency Nursing because of the litluns but it might be something worth considering in a few years time.

I have a fair degree of knowledge about the brain from my undergrad and I love reading about brain function :-)

I think the reason that Autism falls under the Learning Disability branch of Nursing is because most people with Autism who require Nursing level support, usually the inpatient LD wards or the secure LD units (I've worked in a few of them as an agency nurse as there is a degree of cross over between MH and LD) will also have associated learning disabilities so the nurses that are treating them need to have good knowledge of learning disabilities.

I ended up going into mental health nursing purely by chance. It was the summer and I'd finished my undergrad and wanted to go into Clinical Psychology But I needed clinical experience first. So I was wondering what to do. As luck would have it a flyer came through my door advertising that my local University was starting up accelerated Masters Degrees (2 year MSc instead of the usual 3 year BSc for Nursing) for Mental Health Nursing/Adult Nursing/Physiotherapy, provided that you had a related undergrad degree, which I did, so I applied and started in the September. It was hard work though as it was 3 years squished into 2 years and at the higher MSc academic level.

I would absolutely love to do a part time MSc in Neuropsychology leading onto a part time PhD in NeuroPsychology,, but, time will tell. My youngest has such high needs that I will have to see how she progresses.

By the way, I also know someone who is doing a part-time masters while also working part-time for the disability centre in university. Your experience as a mental health nurse might be suitable for that role if you are interested in something like this. I think they also provide training to the workers. 

By the way, I also know someone who is doing a part-time masters while also working part-time for the disability centre in university. Your experience as a mental health nurse might be suitable for that role if you are interested in something like this. I think they also provide training to the workers. 

No problem! What you are saying sounds like an excellent plan. I'm glad to hear that you have such passion for learning! The person I know who is doing a part-time masters also has children, but her children are in school. It'll probably be easier to find time for yourself during the day when all your children are old enough to be in school. 

Thank you for letting me know about this. At the moment I can only do part time agency Nursing because of the litluns but it might be something worth considering in a few years time.