Health Visitors are also trained to recognise the risk factors, triggers and signs of abuse and neglect in children as well as what steps to take to protect them. They are often the first to recognise that the risk of harm to a child has escalated to a point that procedures need to be implemented to protect them.
They maintain contact with families while formal safeguarding arrangements are in place so that families receive the best possible support during this time. The Trust also delivers the Family Nurse Partnership which offers an intensive and structured support to young first time mothers up until their children have reached the age of two.
In particular they can provide: parenting support and advice on family health and minor illnesses new birth visits advice and support around emotions and health advice around feeding, weaning and dental health physical and developmental checks one-to-one breastfeeding support child safety advice help to address concerns you might have about sleep or behaviour immunisations support and information about other services and groups that can provide additional support support for specific issues such as post natal depression where identified as needed, referral to specialists such as Speech and Language Therapy.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Find out more about cookies Continue. They are generally responsible for supporting children from years and their families, providing antenatal and postnatal support, assessing growth and development needs, teaching parents about the nutritional needs of infants and young children, encouraging the development of healthy lifestyles, reducing risks, and safeguarding and protecting children. There is an increasing recognition of the importance of early intervention to prevent mental health problems in later childhood and adolescence and to detect physical health problems that can be effectively treated before a child starts school.
Health visiting interventions, when well planned and co-ordinated, reduce problems in later childhood, promote self-care and resilience in communities, and prevent ill health occurring in the first place.
Across the UK there are differences in the child health programme, mandated health visiting contacts, priorities and service specifications.
Mandated checks: pre-birth; days; weeks; weeks; 3 months; 8 months; months; months; 2 years; years, see:. In Scotland the health visitor acts as the named professional and first point of contact for all health and wellbeing and child protection issues for children under five, see: Getting it right for every child GIRFEC. A recent survey of health visitors and school nurses by the RCN highlighted the following top priorities:. Valuing school nurses and health visitors in England.
RCN's UK position on health visiting in the early years. L ocal Government Association Health visiting: Giving children the best start in life. A review of the literature about key health visitor interventions, processes and outcomes for children and families. Now it will be mandatory for these checks to be delivered by local authorities for the foreseeable future. The antenatal check is the first time that the health visitor will meet with parents.
Together they will complete the health needs assessment covering physical health such as not smoking and the benefits of breastfeeding , mental and emotional health. This is the first check made by health visitor at home after the baby is born.
The health visitor will check on the health and wellbeing of the parents and baby, provide support with feeding and give important advice on keeping safe. They will also discuss early bonding with the baby, talk about feeding, check the baby is putting on weight appropriately, explain the immunisation programme and talk about important safety measures like as car seats.
At this point parents also often seek advice on establishing a routine as well as sleep, crying and colic. It is a key time for discussing how breastfeeding might be going, immunisations, and other specific issues such as sleep.
As well as this check, health visitors will also provide details about local child health resources whilst also assessing whether extra help is needed, such as for babies with special needs.
This check will look at development, growth and immunisation status. It is also a vital time to discuss child safety, as well as and nutrition and dental health.
This check happens at a key time when specific behaviour, speech and language problems may become evident in children. It presents an opportunity for parents to discuss how their child is developing with the health visitor, and flag any developmental issues that can be identified at this age. This will support early planning as the health visitor can link up with other services to ensure processes are in place to support the child and family for preparing for school.
Through work with communities and families they have an important role to play in the delivery of other government priorities such as tackling childhood obesity, reducing smoking smoking in pregnancy and passive smoking impact on children and improving the mental health of new mothers. These universal health visiting points of contact are vital to ensure that all parents are supported to give children the best start in life, and as highly trained specialist nurses, health visitors are ideally placed to provide help early on when additional problems arise.
Comment by Sarah Neill posted on on 02 March It is good to know that these five checks are being retained. It is, though, something of a minimalist approach when you compare with other EU countries. For example in Finland expectant mothers are seen between 9 and 14 times before the birth and the baby is seen 9 times during the first year. It is no surprise then to find they have better child health outcomes than the UK.
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