Health Visiting

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.

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.