Personal Statement when applying to more than one course

Oxford Brookes do a dual field degree of Child Nursing and Mental Health Nursing, this is exactly what I want to do but that is the only hospital that offers it. Therefore for my other 4 choices, I'll have to choose just children's nursing at other universities.

When writing my personal statement, should I write about just children's nursing or should I talk about mental health nursing as well?
I want Oxford Brookes to know that I'm passionate about both aspects of their course but I don't want the other universities to think I'm confused about the course content if I mention mental health.

Any advice would be really helpful, thank you.

Oxford Brookes are not going to consider you for a joint degree if you do not discuss MH nursing. Similarly, other universities just offering child nursing are going to think you are confused about which branch you want to do, and not fully committed to their courses either.

I would seriously urge you to consider the benefits of dual registration at this stage. These courses have very few spaces, and there are limited benefits to you as a qualified nurse. Deciding at this stage that you definitely want to work within children's mental health is difficult as you have not had the experience of the degree. You can always do secondary registration later. Single registration is never a barrier to working in these fields.

I know that I definitely want to do children's nursing. The reason I wanted to do dual field was because I find mental health really interesting but don't want to specialise in it and I know that on a paediatric ward you will come across a lot of children there who will have mental health issues. I thought it would benefit me in terms of experience (not getting jobs, just my ability at a job) if I knew what they were experiencing.

I might just consider doing a secondary registration later, I'm not sure.

If you don't want to specialise in mental health then there really isn't much point in doing a dual degree. Potentially jeopardising your chances of getting a place just because you have an additional interest doesn't really seem logical. If you definitely want to do child nursing, give yourself the best chance of getting into a degree.

There are lots of additional courses and training in mental health that you could do which would be useful in terms of experience whilst doing your degree, for example MH first aid, samaritans etc. Although these don't qualify you in the same way as a dual registration would, they will provide incredibly useful information for empathising and treating children who also have a MH diagnosis, and also look fab on your CV.