I am a senior physiotherapist leading a team on an acute stroke ward in the north-east of England.

My Fellowship was to investigate community stroke rehabilitation and falls programmes in Australia and New Zealand. The purpose of the Fellowship was to identify novel methods to engage stroke survivors in physical activity and to identify effective falls programmes that could reduce stroke survivors' falls in the community.

I am particularly interested in identifying methods and programmes that engage and improve stroke survivors' physical activity levels post-stroke, to enable them to maintain activity and improve after formal rehabilitation has stopped. This enables self-management and empowers individuals to make positive life changes.

As a result of my Fellowship, I have completed a service evaluation to investigate the Lifestyle-integrated Functional Exercise programme for falls in a community stroke population and presented a poster at the 2020 European Stroke Organisation and World Stroke Organization conference.

The Fellowship has informed my practice, improved the quality of therapy and amount of therapy stroke patients receive and enabled me to make positive changes to the community I work in.