A day in the life of a trainee health visitor: Leona Flett, RGU
Conference delegate Leona Flett, offers us an insight into a day in the life of a trainee health visitor. Arrive at the office at 8.30am, greet all the team. We need to answer any voicemails and emails and document them in client notes. I usually head over to the maternity unit for 9.00am to collect information on postnatal discharges and new pregnancy booking information.I return to the health visitor’s office and allocate the new discharges (now primary visits) to the relevant health visitors. We then arrange to visit the primaries within four days at home. My mentor and I have…
Health visiting in Scotland – time for celebration at last!
Phil Wilson, Professor of Primary Care and Rural Health at the University of Aberdeen tells us why he thinks the new Universal Health Pathway for Health Visiting is a cause for celebration. October’s announcement of the refreshed universal health visiting pathway by the Chief Nursing Officer and the statutory implementation of the Named Person role are real causes for celebration. After over a decade during which most Scottish families with young children did not know who their health visitor was, at last we have a firm policy commitment to personal continuity of care and regular universal access to preventive child…
My Juno Anniversary – the Importance of Perinatal Mental Health Support
Tess Askew is a co-founder of Juno, a perinatal support group, discussing her personal story and the importance of good mental health. My first born Ethan – the boy who came along and healed many things in my life, stole my heart and made myself and Chris a family with so much to love for – was born in 2013. He turns 4 soon and this means that I have been accessing and then facilitating peer support for 3 years. My Juno anniversary if you will! My labour and Ethan’s birth were what I would consider traumatic and the start…
Postgraduate prizewinner shares enthusiasm for person-centred health visiting
Meghan Tuohy, a postgraduate student at Queen Margaret University (QMU), won the QNIS academic prize at a ceremony in May. Here she walks about what the prize means to her and her plans for the future. “To be given a QNIS prize for the work I did during my postgraduate community nursing course was a fantastic surprise. My colleagues and I worked very hard throughout the course and were delighted to have completed the Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Practice: Health Visiting. “My journey in nursing has always been community focused and as a young student I took part in community…
QNIS Prizewinner’s blog – Emma Hay-Higgins
Emma Hay-Higgins won the Post Graduate Prize for Robert Gordon University, and here tells us her story. Receiving notification that I had won a Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland Postgraduate Award was a lovely surprise. It is a great honour to receive recognition for the work and learning undertaken as part of my Specialist Public Health Nursing studies, especially alongside the wonderfully committed and compassionate nurses who achieved their qualification with me. My journey into Health Visiting has probably followed a less traditional path, having had fewer years of nursing experience to draw upon prior to commencing the course. I thoroughly…
Safer Communities
This project sought to pilot two new initiatives: Improve assessment and signposting for people who maybe more vulnerable to risk of domestic fires With a local housing provider and tenants, pilot a Good Neighbour, Good Neighbourhood initiative to support people to feel safer in their community.
Towards a Mentally Flourishing School
The collaborative project seeks to establish an innovative whole-school approach to enable social, emotional and psychological wellbeing throughout the school in order to promote positive behaviours, engagement in education and optimise attainment.