Fostering professional curiosity in student health visitor practice

We invite you to join us on 13 February, 15:30-16:30 for the first SCPHN student health visitor networking event of 2025, where we discuss professional curiosity, how student health visitors can be professionally curious, and the potential barriers. We will also hear from our co-chairs, (newly qualified health visitors), who will share their experiences and tips on psychological safety and self-care.

Fostering and embedding professional curiosity and respectful uncertainty from the beginning of a student health visitor’s career is important to exploring, observing, and understanding the family’s situation and what life is like for babies and children. It enables a holistic assessment of possible indicators of vulnerability and risk of abuse or neglect, while maintaining an objective, professional and supportive approach to safeguarding babies and children.

Professional curiosity is one of the most common learning points that arises from Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews, as highlighted in the latest Annual Report by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel.    

Amanda Holland – chair, and co-chairs Claire Black, are delighted to be joined by Jennifer Kirman, Principal Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, and co-author of a book chapter on safeguarding¹. We are also thrilled to be joined by our new co-chair and winner of the 2024 iHV SCPHN student health visitor award, Nicola Taggart.

This event is available to iHV SCPHN student health visitor members. If you are not a member yet, you can find out more about student membership here.

This networking event aligns to the NMC 2022 Standards of Proficiency for Specialist Community Public Health Nurses – Health Visiting, in particular;

• Sphere C – Promoting human rights and addressing inequalities, assessment, surveillance and intervention
• Sphere E – Advancing public health services and promoting healthy places, environments and cultures

1. Kirman J and Smith N. Safeguarding. In Chilton S and Bain H, editors. ‘A Textbook of Community Nursing – 3rd edition’. Taylor and Francis. 2025. (Available to pre-order).

This webinar is on Thursday 20 February 2025 (join from 3:15pm to allow a prompt start) 3:30pm to 4:30pm.

This is open to all members.

Babies and children under one year of age are particularly vulnerable to serious injury or to dying as a result of abuse or neglect. Accidental bruising is a common injury in children, which can increase as a child becomes more independently mobile. However, bruising is also the most common injury in children who have been abused.

In non-mobile infants bruising is rare. As health visitors reach more families than any other health professional, they can often be the first to identify bruising in a non-mobile infant. While protocols for the assessment and management of bruising in non-mobile infants are available locally to support and guide safeguarding practices, literature suggests wide variations in interpretation.

Join us for this Insights event where we will hear from a panel of experts in the field who will discuss safeguarding policy for the management of bruising, clinical considerations, the management of bruising in health visiting practice and the supportive nature of supervision.

How does this event align to the 2022 NMC Standards of Proficiency for SCPHN Health Visiting?

Attendance at this event and engagement with the iHV reflection template will support you with demonstrating CPD activities that align to the NMC (2022) Standards of Proficiency for SCPHN Health Visiting, in particular:

• Sphere of Influence C: Promoting human rights and addressing inequalities: assessment, surveillance and intervention; C.2, C.HV3, C.HV8
• Sphere of influence E: Advancing public health services and promoting healthy places, environment and cultures; E.HV2
• Sphere of influence F: Leading and collaborating: from investment to action and dissemination

How to book

Login with your iHV member email address and password – you must have ‘validated’ your membership in order for this to work.

Once you have logged in, click on the “+” symbol below to reveal the “Register now” button.

Join us on Thursday 30 January, 3:30-4:30pm, for this new webinar launching our fantastic new e-learning and resources. To be delivered by the iHV team in partnership with Adinah Erb (Principal CAMHS Specialist/Team Lead – Family Partnership Team, Centre for Parent and Child Support, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust).

We are delighted to offer our iHV Members access to these fabulous materials, designed to support sensitive and effective conversations with families, enabling the creation of meaningful health-related goals and actions.

In this webinar you will learn the background to the online programme offered and understand more about the model underpinning it. You will get to experience the online programme resources – we will show you how to navigate to the materials for your own CPD and make the most of the programme offered.

How to book

Login with your iHV member email address and password – you must have ‘validated’ your membership in order for this to work.

Once you have logged in, click on the “+” symbol below to reveal the “Register now” button.

If you have any queries, please email [email protected] and we will be happy to help.

This webinar is on Thursday 16 January 2025 (join from 3:15pm to allow a prompt start) 3:30pm to 4:30pm.

This is open to all members.

Tackling increasing demands on urgent services is a national priority as too many patients are waiting too long in overcrowded A&E departments across the country. Our iHV report published in December 2023 showed that the rate of children aged 0-4 years attending A&E in England has increased by 42% in the last 10 years. A large proportion of these attendances did not require hospital treatment and were for non-urgent conditions (for example, minor illnesses, feeding problems and parental distress due to infant crying), suggesting that they could be managed and supported by other means, including health visitors in the community.

Following the Darzi review, the new government has proposed three “shifts” in health care to ensure that services are fit for the future – this includes shifting care from the hospital to the community and a much greater emphasis on prevention. Health visitors can play and are an important part of the solution to addressing increasing demands on urgent care services through their ‘upstream’ work in prevention and early intervention – supporting parents to manage minor illnesses by improving health literacy is a central function of health visiting.

At this Insights event we will explore health visitors’ public health role in reducing A&E attendances. We will hear the latest national data and context of 0-4-year-olds attending A&E – Why are rates increasing? Who are the high users? And what role can health visitors play in reducing A&E attendances?

We have a fantastic line up of inspirational speakers, all focused on the public health role in reducing A&E attendances:

• Honorary Professor Damian Roland, Consultant in Paediatric Emergency Medicine, Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Urgent and Emergency Care System Clinical Director
• Georgina Mayes, iHV Health Visiting Professional Lead (Quality and Policy)
• Kate Walters, Divisional Director of Nursing & AHP’s, Children & Family Services and CAMHS

How does this event align to the 2022 NMC Standards of Proficiency for SCPHN Health Visiting?

The iHV reflection template will support you with demonstrating CPD activities that align to the NMC (2022) Standards of Proficiency for SCPHN Health Visiting, in particular:

• Sphere of Influence D

D.HV14 – Advise parents, carers and families on symptom identification and relief, enabling them to manage minor illnesses and injuries safely and effectively, and in knowing when to seek support for further treatment where necessary.

How to book

Login with your iHV member email address and password – you must have ‘validated’ your membership in order for this to work.

Once you have logged in, click on the “+” symbol below to reveal the “Register now” button.