iHV welcomes new Director to lead learning and development

This month, we are delighted to welcome Dr Michelle Moseley as the Institute of Health Visiting’s new Director for our Learning and Development department. Michelle will succeed Philippa Bishop who has skilfully led our learning and development work at the iHV for over ten years. Michelle takes up her position on 30 April 2025, with a short handover period with Philippa, following a national recruitment process.

Michelle is an experienced health visitor, educator, researcher and leader with an extensive career that spans several senior roles in the NHS, higher education and within national professional bodies.

Dr Michelle Moseley

Responding to her appointment and her new role ahead, Michelle said:

“I am thrilled to be joining the Institute of Health Visiting as Director of Programmes (Learning and Development). I have been a health visitor for the last 22 years having undertaken many roles since qualification – and in all of them, my guiding principle is to ensure that the babies, children, young people, families and communities that we serve sit at the centre of my practice.

“My roles have been varied since qualifying as a health visitor and have included being a lead nurse in safeguarding children, nurse educator leading the SCPHN programme and a variety of other roles at Cardiff University. In more recent years, I have worked at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Wales, as Education and Lifelong Learning Advisor and, most recently, at the RCN as Head of the King’s Nursing Cadets. I have recently completed my PhD which focused on evaluating the supportive nature of safeguarding supervision in health visiting practice. My PhD study recommends taking a person-centred focus to allow health visitors to be supported in the most challenging safeguarding practice situations.

“Never more has the voice of health visiting been required. I see the Institute of Health Visiting enhancing and enabling the voice of the health visitor in strengthening the quality and consistency of health visiting for the benefit of all babies, children, families and communities. Last year, the Darzi report recognised the poor state of child health and the NHS in England. This cannot be ignored – and requires health visiting to play its fullest part to improve health and reduce inequalities, especially when the 10-year health plan recommends a shift of service to more local care provision with an emphasis on early intervention and prevention. This is a key moment for health visiting and public health nursing.

“I am extremely passionate about the role of the health visitor, its future and impact on society as a whole. As I embark on this new career path as Director of Programmes at the Institute of Health Visiting, I aim to join them in becoming a leading voice not only for health visitors but more importantly, for the babies, children, families and communities at the centre of their practice.”

Alison Morton, iHV CEO said:

“We are delighted to appoint Michelle as our new Director and look forward to seeing the iHV’s learning and development programmes go from strength to strength. Michelle is passionate about ensuring that all health visiting practitioners are equipped to provide the highest standards of care to babies, children, families and communities – and has already achieved so much in her career so far.

“The whole team at the iHV and Board of Trustees would also like to thank Philippa Bishop who has skilfully led our learning and development portfolio of work over the last ten years. During this time, the iHV has grown considerably, and our learning and development offer has increased from a small handful of training courses in 2014, to the leading centre of excellence for health visiting continuous professional development that it is today. It is with sadness that we say goodbye to Philippa, but she should be proud of all that she has achieved. We thank Philippa for everything that she has given to the iHV, we have all benefitted from her leadership, passion, kindness and dedication, and we wish her every happiness and health in the years ahead.”

Philippa Bishop

Philippa Bishop said:

“It is almost 11 years since I joined the Institute of Health Visiting, initially as a Project Manager for the Making the Most of Health Visiting programme back in 2014. So much has happened in the years since, both professionally and personally. The iHV has grown to become a nationally recognised provider of training for health visitors and the wider multi-agency workforce across a range of subjects. It has been a privilege to lead the department, working alongside the excellent iHV team with its energetic facilitators, partnering with some brilliant experts and courageous lived experience practitioners. I am sad to be leaving the iHV family but delighted to hand the baton of the learning and development workstream to Michelle, enabling me to step back from work and step up my focus on my own family and their needs at this time.”

New career opportunity to join iHV as Director of Programmes (Learning and Development)

The iHV is currently at an exciting point in its growth, as it seeks to expand its learning and development portfolio. We are seeking an operational and people-focused Director of Programmes (Learning and Development) to join our Executive team. With a growing membership, we’re an optimistic organisation and we can see a brighter future ahead. This role provides a unique opportunity to join us and be part of the journey as we seek to strengthen health visiting across the UK and improve outcomes for the babies, children, families and communities that we serve.

You will lead the Learning and Development team and play a key role in developing our portfolio of programmes, as well as being instrumental in shaping our vision and strategy for the future. Working with colleagues from across the iHV, as well as external partners, you will drive the development and delivery of high-quality, impactful learning programmes that transform practitioners’ potential to improve health visiting.

Our current learning and development portfolio supports a wide range of health visiting and multi-agency practitioners at different stages of their career journey – from training on key public health priority topics, to bespoke leadership programmes – there is lots of variety and an abundance of potential to develop this in the future. This is a varied and demanding role that will put you at the forefront of ensuring that practitioners have the learning and development opportunities that they need to thrive in their health visiting careers.

We are looking for a very special person to join our small but mighty team, all focused on turning our mission into reality. To join us, you’ll need significant leadership and management experience and proven skills in the development, delivery and evaluation of learning programmes, with excellent project management skills, including managing human and financial resources. We are looking for someone who has personal drive for excellence and the willingness to think strategically, embrace change and innovation, and with sound business acumen.

You will be joining our organisation at an exciting time as we look to review our business strategy in 2025 to ensure that the iHV remains in a strong position now, and in the future. Is this the opportunity you’ve been waiting for?

What We Offer:

The chance to work in a leading charity and professional body for health visiting and make a significant impact on the health visiting profession and its work to improve health outcomes for babies, children, families, and communities.
A dynamic and supportive work environment – working with a team of people who are genuinely committed to our charity’s core mission and values, and making the iHV a ‘great place to work’.
Opportunities for professional development.
Hybrid and flexible working – With a hot desk in London and an office nestled on the south coast, we can offer a range of flexible working options including home-based and hybrid. This post will require some UK travel.
Holiday – 25 days annual leave, plus bank holidays (increasing to 30 days leave after 2 years employment at the iHV – pro rata for part-time staff).
Workplace pensions – the iHV has a generous organisation pension scheme, with 10% employer contribution and a personalised employee contribution to suit your needs.
Team Away Days – We gather together as a whole team once a year for our 2-day awayday, and at regular intervals online and at our conferences throughout the year. We value our time together as a team to celebrate the work that we have done, learn together, share ideas and constantly look for ways to improve what we do for the benefit of the people that we serve – with a mix of work and fun to build relationships and connections across our organisation.

Applications close: 9am Monday 20 January 2025
First Interviews: 22 or 24 January 2025 – hold the dates

For further details and how to apply

Read our latest annual report to find out more about iHV

Scottish Government publishes updated National Framework for Child Protection Learning and Development

On 1 March 2024, the Scottish Government published its updated version of the National Framework for Child Protection Learning and Development which will be relevant to health visitors working in Scotland.

This updated Framework replaces the previous version, published in 2012 to support the design and delivery of child protection learning and development. It provides a resource for all learning and development relevant to child protection, regardless of which agency practitioners work in and can be used flexibly and alongside single agency frameworks for learning to emphasise the key themes of the National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 – updated 2023 .

The longstanding key message is that safeguarding is ‘Still Everyone’s Job’. All practitioners have a responsibility to remain aware of changes to legislation, policy and practice that impact on how frontline services should respond. The updated Framework incorporates recent legislation and several key policy documents:

The National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 – updated 2023 (NGCP2023) highlighted important themes for practice, and these will be key to updating all learning and development resources within the ‘Getting it right for every child’ (GIRFEC) continuum – wellbeing to welfare to protection – supporting a proactive, preventative approach to practice. Key themes are:

rights-based approach (supporting and embracing UNCRC)
needs-led/strengths-based approach (supporting relationship-based practice)
trauma-informed/enhanced practice (supporting understanding of childhood adversity and trauma)
holistic assessment (supporting strengths/resilience, identifying risk/concerns within a child’s experiences)
recognising diversity and inclusion (supporting sensitivity of language, culture and communication differences).

The Framework aims to provide a resource which clarifies child protection learning needed at four levels – “Wider Workforce, General Workforce, Specific Workforce, and Intensive Workforce”, to:

promote collaborative multi-agency practice to support children’s wellbeing, welfare and protection
support the multi-agency task of assessing, managing and addressing identified need or risk to children, young people or parents/carers
provide a multi-agency learning and development framework adaptable for local learning and development strategies and evaluation
contribute to best practice through the development of a competent and confident workforce
support the design, implementation and evaluation of multi-agency child protection learning
establish agreed competencies, identifying the relevant knowledge and skills required, according to the roles and responsibilities of the various groups that make up multi-agency workforces, including those likely to encounter children, young people and their families as part of their day-to-day work
emphasise the importance of shared learning and collaborative practice to achieve better outcomes for children

Read the revised Framework in full here

WeLearn #AllOurHealth – starts 4 February

Children’s attachment – online learning tool

NICE has just launched an online learning tool – Children’s attachment – that uses interactive activities and case studies to support the implementation of NICE guidance.

The tool sets out how the guideline can be applied in a practical way to support children and young people who may have attachment difficulties, as well as their carers and families.

This e-learning tool has learning activities to help you to implement the guideline “Children’s attachment: attachment in children and young people who are adopted from care, in care or at high risk of going into care” and improve outcomes by focusing on some of the key implementation challenges identified. It is divided into four sections:

Understanding attachment
Causes of attachment difficulties
Recognising possible attachment difficulties
Supporting children and young people who may have attachment difficulties, their carers and families.

It will take around one hour to complete and you can undertake it in more than one session if required. The tool will resume where you left off. You will need to login to the NICE system to access the e-learning.

This free online tool has been developed by the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE).

It’s aimed at staff who have contact with children & young people who are adopted from care, in special guardianship, looked after by local authorities or on the edge of care.

Go to e-LfH website