5th November 2024
Victoria Jackson, Sharin Baldwin, Vicky Gilroy: iHV Innovation and Research Team
Being research-engaged as a health visitor is essential for our professional practice (NMC, 2022); however, the reality of this can be challenging. The iHV Innovations and Research Department has been working hard to try and make this easier for you.
To support your engagement, we have published a paper in The Journal of Family and Child Health this month, which aims to help health visitors engage in research and overcome the barriers. Health visitors, through their unique role, are ideally placed to identify research needs and engage in research which could contribute to improving outcomes for the babies, children, families and communities that they work with. Despite this, in the iHV State of Health Visiting 2023 survey, 74% of health visitors stated that they were not actively involved in research. This is because research is often perceived as something that is carried out by scientists in labs or by academics in clinical trial units, and not something that many health visitors in practice can relate to. The recent national drive to move the nursing research agenda forward may seem daunting to many health visitors, resulting in them disengaging.
Our new paper highlights why it is important for health visitors to engage with research and how research aligns with health visiting practice. In this paper we explore the common barriers to engagement at every level of the social-ecological model and suggest ways in which health visitors can contribute to the national agenda. We hope that by demystifying some of the research roles it will make research more accessible to health visitors in their daily practice.
We are offering a number of ways to support your engagement in research:
Join our fantastic iHV Research Network, this is open to all members who:
- are interested in research in health visiting practice
- would like to connect with other health visitors who are active in research to share learning
- want to find out about support to become involved in research
This network provides an opportunity to:
- meet regularly with colleagues across the UK through our research networking events
- keep up-to-date with national developments
- learn about funding opportunities
- network and share research ideas
- collaborate with other researchers/health visitors
- create a community of health visitor researchers
Our next Research Networking is on 27th November 2024, 9.30 -11.30, where we will be joined by Professor Ruth Endacott, NIHR Director of Nursing & Midwifery Senior Programme.
New for 2025!
We will be launching our new Health Visitor Researchers Database, which has been created to enable colleagues across the UK to collaborate and connect with each other. This database will be accessible to all iHV members through our website (will require log in). If you would like your details to be added to this database, then please complete this form.
- If you would like to collaborate with us on research, then please click here
- To find out more about research funding opportunities please click here
- To read about our current projects and completed projects please click here
- To read about our publications please click here
The Journal of Family and Child Health is a new journal which has been created from the merger of British Journal of Child Health and Journal of Health Visiting. Whilst it is an independent organisation, with no affiliations with the iHV, the journal is offering iHV members an exclusive member-only 25% discount on subscriptions. Further information will follow in this month’s member newsletter. For any enquiries, or access to this discount early, please email: [email protected].
