Typical employers Qualifications and training Key skills. Health visitors help families to maintain the health of young children. This often involves home visits. They may also work with deprived groups, such as the homeless. Key responsibilities include:. Health visitors are typically employed by the NHS or by local authorities. They may be based in GP surgeries or community clinics.
You may find work elsewhere, though — such as for charities or voluntary organisations. It is only possible to become a health visitor after you have first qualified and registered as a nurse or midwife. You do not need to have practised as a nurse or midwife for a particular length of time before starting health visitor training. Qualification as a nurse or midwife is achieved via a nursing degree course, lasting three or four years.
We also talk about feeding and I let the parents know about what support will be available once the baby is born along with some more general information about the role of the health visitor. Today I have a student nurse working with me getting experience of the health visitor role.
We go to see a family with an 13 day old baby for the new birth visit. As health visitors, we work with families from before the baby is born, which places us in an ideal position for spotting any problems early and giving families the support they need. Mum is breastfeeding and we discuss the wealth of health benefits breastfeeding offers, both for baby and for mum.
Infant feeding is a large part of our role and we work closely with the breastfeeding support workers to offer families guidance and support. The next visit is supporting a mum with postnatal depression.
Supporting mum and giving her time to talk about how she is feeling helps me to tailor the care and services that she and her family need. I really enjoy the variety of issues that people come to me with and these clinics are a great learning opportunity for newly qualified health visitors and students.
My next visit is to complete a two year development review on a child who I have been working with due to domestic abuse in the family. We work closely with the police and domestic abuse agencies to ensure that families receive the most appropriate support.
Domestic abuse and safeguarding children is a large part of the health visiting role and we receive regular training and updates on this subject. We also have guidance and support from safeguarding supervision to ensure we support the family correctly. The questionnaire is posted out to parents so they can work through it before the visit.
What would you be doing between the visits? Would you be writing notes? What other typical duties would you be doing? Health visitor, Sarah Hughes Do you appreciate the variety? What are the Challenges? There are cutbacks to the budgets, huge cutbacks — which mean we are quite short staffed.
We work very differently from how we used to do it. What are the Positives? What Qualities help you do your job? Do you always finish At 5pm? Related articles. Government confirms mandatory Covid vaccination for care home staff. Practices to start Covid vaccines from 14 December. Nurse and health visitor numbers fall for first time in four years. Please remember that the submission of any material is governed by our Terms and Conditions and by submitting material you confirm your agreement to these Terms and Conditions.
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