How would you define ‘resilient’ in leadership? If you’re having trouble, you could do worse than sit down for a chat with the winner the 2024 Emerging Young Leader Award, Dr Victoria Selwyn, whose ambition and drive is truly inspirational.
Selwyn – a 28-year-old physician associate in a Hertfordshire-based community mental health team – has wanted to work in mental health since she was a teenager, although it’s not been an easy path for her. She’s overcome professional and personal adversity with hard work, grit and determination, and now chairs the national charity Headucate, which she set up in 2021. Selwyn is also beginning the next chapter in her journey towards what she has always wanted to be – a consultant psychiatrist.
“When I was about 14 years old, and choosing my GCSEs, I started thinking about what I really wanted to do with my life,” she says. “It came down to two things – medicine or musical theatre.”
Not the most obvious combination, you might think, but Selwyn – who has always loved singing, acting and performing – sees the connection. “I’m very much a people person. I wanted something that would be public-facing and let me use those skills,” she says. “I talked to friends and family, and decided to go for it and try to become a doctor. I knew it was going to be a hard road.”
Indeed it was. Selwyn narrowly missed the A level grades she needed to get to medical school first time round, but she wasn’t deterred. She went to the University of Liverpool to study human physiology, coming away with a first-class degree. An offer to study medicine at the University of East Anglia in Norwich quickly followed. Looking back at that time, was she prepared for the challenge of working in an NHS that is now described as ‘broken’ by the government?
“I don’t regret it for a second. It’s still the best decision I’ve ever made”
“With hindsight, the state of the NHS and the pressures that junior doctors face weren’t necessarily at the front of my mind when I was applying for medicine. Nowadays, that’s much more in the news headlines. But I don’t regret it for a second; it’s still the best decision I’ve ever made.
“The two years working as a junior doctor after I’d qualified were very hard. Really tough. You think that medical school will prepare you for that – and I know that mine was voted one of the best for doing that – but until you actually get there, you just don’t understand the night shifts and the 12-hour days, and the way your personal and social life has to get put on hold. It’s hard not being able to leave your work in the workplace, and you worry about the patients you’ve left for the night.
“It was also a difficult time because my dad died in August 2023. That made finishing the training hard, but I know he’d have wanted me to carry on and persevere – he was always very proud of me. It took me a long time to get to medical school, but I’m so pleased he got to see me working as a junior doctor. I just hope I can carry on making him proud; it’s why I want to pursue my career dream of becoming a psychiatrist.”
The NHS isn’t the only place where Selwyn’s passion for mental health shines through. In 2021, she founded the charity Headucate, which is based on a student society of the same name that she joined at Norwich Medical School.
“That was set up by a medical student at the time, Dr Suzy Parker, who had her own mental health struggles. She saw that there was a gap in mental health education in schools, and research around that time showed that 50 per cent of mental health conditions have planted their seeds by the age of 14. To address this, she established Headucate, which saw university students going into secondary schools to run workshops with children and encourage mental-health literacy.”
As Selwyn was approaching graduation in 2022, she was thinking of ways to continue her mental health advocacy work.
“We’d already had contacts from students’ unions at other universities, saying ‘we love this idea, we’d like to create a Headucate branch, too’. So, I spoke with the presidents of other Headucate branches across the UK, and some of the team I was working with at Norwich Medical School, and said ‘let’s create this as a charity’.”
Modestly, Selwyn adds “and the rest is history”, but this is perhaps underplaying the hard work and effort that she, and the rest of the charity’s board, have put into its development. They have supported multiple student-led mental health groups with fundraising and expertise, helping them to run activities and reach even more children. “It’s my baby,” smiles Selwyn, unable to hide the pride she so obviously feels for the organisation.
Poignantly, Suzy Parker, who set up the original Headucate branch and battled with her own mental ill-health, died just a few weeks before we spoke to Selwyn. “That was a shock. Even from the few times that I met with her, you could tell how passionate she was about talking with children in schools. You can’t help but feel that, if she’d had that opportunity herself, maybe we’d have seen a different outcome.”
Selwyn’s work with Headucate has already been recognised with a Diana Award in 2022 – one of the highest accolades a young person can receive for social and humanitarian work. She also won the National Societies and Volunteering Extra Mile Award in 2022 – and now she can add IoL’s Emerging Young Leader Award to the trophy cabinet. “I was shocked but thrilled when I heard my name. It’s an honour to have been chosen among so many other amazing young leaders. This award is a testament to the hard work all of the Headucate trustees have put in to make Headucate UK become a reality and is another step in destigmatising mental health.”
She says her leadership style is collaborative. “I’m chair and founder of the Headucate charity, but that doesn’t mean I have the most experience. My fellow trustees all have incredible strengths, and using those strengths – and understanding where they are best placed – is an important part of letting them thrive in what they are doing, and making sure the charity is doing the best for the people we support.”
Is leadership something she wants to keep in her career? “I’d love to,” she beams. “As a consultant psychiatrist, that’s a given really. You have a mental health team that works with you, and patients come under your remit, too: you’re the responsible clinician as the consultant. As much as the thought of having that responsibility scares me a bit, I know that it is all collaborative working in a multidisciplinary team. The team I currently work in is such a close unit, and everyone goes out of their way to support one another, the patients and the trust. I admire all the people I work with. I can’t see any other role, apart from working as consultant psychiatrist, where I am hitting all of my goals.”
This article is adapted from a feature first published in the winter 2024 issue of Edge.
