Within Suffolk, our Health Visiting teams are integrated with our Children's Centres, providing a range of services to help parents and families stay safe, happy and healthy.
They also work alongside other agencies such as
- GPs and midwives,
- school nurses,
- early years' settings,
- voluntary and community groups,
- other children's services such as social care.
Health Visitors are Specialist Community Public Health Nurses (SCPHN) who are registered nurses or midwives and can offer families with children aged 0 to 5 years old. SCPHN's can help with:
- support for the health and wellbeing of the whole family, providing antenatal visits, a visit after the midwife ends her care once the baby has arrived, and support and advice until the child goes to school.
- advice on healthy choices, e.g. breastfeeding, introducing solids and healthy eating.
- developmental reviews to ensure the child is reaching their full potential.
- advice on the childhood immunisation programme, which ensures the child is protected against disease and infection.
- information about specific difficulties, such as postnatal depression.
- support for the whole family into education, training or work.
- advice and information on wider issues such as housing problems or domestic abuse.
- help with specialist services to support additional needs, e.g. speech and language.
- support for parents to feel confident in their parenting skills and to provide the best opportunities for their baby as they grow.
- What is a Health Visitor? PDF343KB
The requirements of a Health Visitor
- qualification as a Health Visitor or nearing completion,
- NMC registration as a qualified nurse, midwife or allied health professional,
- passion for supporting children, families and public health,
- strong communication, interpersonal and listening abilities,
- commitment to our WE ASPIRE values.
As a team, we:
- take an innovative multi-agency approach with Early Help, Social Care and Family Hubs.
- have a profound impact on lifelong health through early intervention.
- help families overcome challenges and thrive.
- provide expert advice, assessments and support.
We will offer you:
- a bespoke induction programme and preceptorship,
- a robust learning and development programme,
- Solihull Approach Training to strengthen early intervention work with families,
- peer supervision, management, and child protection supervision,
- training to support parents from the antenatal period onwards.
Additional benefits
We can offer:
- Local government or NHS Pension, subject to meeting the current requirements,
- enhanced entitlement to annual leave, dependent on length of continuous service which recognises both NHS and SCC service,
- access to a car leasing scheme,
- free on-site car parking in all council buildings,
- flexible working options and our commitment to support our staff’s health and wellbeing,
- staff networks which are open to staff, councillors and partners who share similar characteristics, life experiences, values, and beliefs.