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HV Conference
22nd August 2017
9:00 am - 3:30 pm
Taking Care of Our Future
Hundreds of health visitors gathered for a conference celebrating the contribution they make to the future of children and families across Scotland.
The event – Taking Care of Our Future – was held in Glasgow on Tuesday August 22 and heard from a range of speakers including Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport Shona Robison and Chief Nursing Officer, Professor Fiona McQueen.
It brought together health visitors from across the country, with representatives from all health board areas attending.
A series of workshops was held covering topics such as the implementation of the universal pathway, infant nutrition and speech and language development.
The conference, which took place during national Health Visitor week, was jointly hosted by the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland (QNIS), the Scottish Government, the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV), and NHS Education for Scotland (NES).
The speakers’ presentations are available to download below in order of appearance.
Professor Fiona McQueen, Chief Nursing Officer of Scotland.
Shona Robison MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport
Video of the Cabinet Secretary’s speech will be available shortly
Bob Fraser, Health Advisor, GIRFEC
Professor Dame Sarah Cowley, Emeritus Professor, King’s College London
Professor Sir Hary Burns FRSE, Professor of Global Public Health
We asked a selection of those attending the event to speak about what they enjoy most about being a health visitor. They also shared their views on the benefits and challenges of the Universal Pathway. You can watch the video here.
WORKSHOPS
Dr Cheryll Adams, Executive Director, Institute of Health Visiting
The Institute of Health Visiting was established nearly five years ago by health visitors for health visitors. It provides a one stop shop for evidence, training opportunities and other resources to support high quality health visiting practice across the UK. It is a charity, its core purpose being to strengthen the quality and consistency of health visiting services for the benefit of all pre-school children and families, and to reduce health inequalities. This interactive session will include a description of our many helpful resources and how health visitors can access and use them to strengthen their practice, and for CPD and revalidation.
The presentation is available to download here
Linda Wolfson, National Maternal and Infant Nutrition Co-ordinator, Scottish Government
During this workshop we will explore:
- What information is routinely collected in Scotland and is available for Health Visiting practitioners and their managers.
- How the information should be interpreted.
- How can we use this to drive improvement, not just in breastfeeding rates, but more importantly to improve the experiences of individual families and health outcomes for every child.
The presentation is available to download here
Jean Cowie, Educational Project Manager, NES and Joanne Gibson, Project Manager, NES.
Using the principles of GIRFEC and the Universal Health Visiting Pathway (Scottish Government, 2015) this tool aims to support health visitors and family nurses to profile and promote speech, language and communication development in children and their families. Information on expected speech, language and communication development, and strategies and interventions to promote speech, language and communication are presented at the key stages of development as outlined in the Universal Health Visiting Pathway. In addition to being flexible and interactive, the resource is web-based allowing practitioners to access the tool on their computer, tablet or smart phone.
The presentation is available to download here
Debbie Balshaw, Lead Nurse – Early Years, NHS Tayside Rosemary Robertson, Associate Nurse Director, South Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership Liz Kearney, Interim Associate Director of Nursing, NHS Lanarkshire
A new national universal pathway for all children in Scotland and a re-focused model of working for health Visitors has been introduced incrementally across Scotland since October 2015 to strengthen consistent, seamless support and care for children and families. The implementation of this pathway gives recognition of crucial role of Health Visitors in the early years and that they make a real difference to families.
Join us at this workshop where you will have the opportunity to hear and learn from three NHS Boards on their approach and experience of implementing the universal pathway. The workshop will also share and engage with you on:
- challenges and barriers faced
- lessons learnt
- future plans and to celebrate achievements
The presentation is available to download here
Kathryn Paterson, QI Advisor, Scottish Government
Delegates attending this interactive workshop will hear how improvement methodology has been supporting teams to achieve reliable delivery of the Universal Pathway. You will learn from the experience of teams who have used improvement methods to understand and improve processes to achieve delivery of a high quality health visiting service and impact on improved outcomes for children.
The presentation is available to download here
Val Alexander, Clinical Nurse Manager/Family Nurse Partnership Service Manager, NHS Lothian
The requirement of the Health Visiting Service to work with families who are deemed ‘hard to engage’ has presented many challenges over the years. The re-focused service delivery model for health visiting through the universal pathway will provide the service an opportunity to strengthen therapeutic client relationships through strength based models of care delivery. What will this mean for Health Visitors in terms of ‘hard to engage’ clients.
At this workshop we will explore:
- What do we mean by hard to engage – what are the barriers and enablers
- Does professional style and Health Visiting approach influence client engagement?
- What approaches can we learn from other services
- How do we measure client engagement?
- How do we recognise success?
