iHV podcasts: iHV SCPHN Student HV Award Winners share their incredible new ideas

iHV SCPHN Student Health Visitor Award winners 2023 speak with Amanda Holland, iHV Professional Services Lead, on their incredible new ideas for service provision

In March 2023, iHV announced a new award open to Specialist Community Public Health Nursing (SCPHN) health visitor students who are iHV members. The award was developed to celebrate new talent joining the health visitor workforce and to showcase new ideas for service provision. Students and Higher Education Institutions, who provide SCPHN education programmes, were invited to submit to the iHV Student Award 2023, and all submissions were of a very high quality. The winners of the iHV Student Award 2023 were announced in August – read more here.

In this short series of podcasts Amanda Holland, iHV Professional Services Lead, talks with 2023 award winners Leonie Grundy, Claire Black and Robin Williams.

We are delighted to share their amazing work and look forward to hearing their progress as newly qualified health visitor. We are also thrilled that Leonie and Claire are now co-chairs of the iHV SCPHN Student Health Visitor Networking Events. See here for more details.

Leonie Grundy

Leonie Grundy shares how she led activities to film a series of evidence-based safe sleep demonstrations for use on social media, within antenatal classes, and safe sleep training.

Please also see our Safer Sleep Resources (available to iHV members)

Claire Black

Claire Black discusses how she worked collaboratively with other professionals to meet the nutritional needs and food preferences of Afghan families.
Please note – in this podcast, the term ‘weaning’ is used and refers to complementary feeding. These terms continue to be used interchangeably, however, we recognise ‘complementary feeding’ as the preferred term in accordance with WHO.

Please also see our GPP – Complementary feeding and baby-led weaning (available to iHV members)

Robin Williams

Robin Williams talks about how she identified a gap in the involvement of fathers in home visits by health visitors and her initiative to engage and include fathers.

Please also see our resources on working with fathers (available to iHV members)

New iHV podcast – Dilys Daws

Listen to our new iHV podcast. Alison Morton, iHV’s CEO, talks to Dilys Daws, the leading child psychotherapist and author of ‘Standing next to the weighing scales’. Dilys is credited with changing the way that practitioners work now, “bringing the baby into the room” and influencing national policy on infant mental health.

What is the purpose of the health visitor baby clinic? Do we really need them? Are they just about baby weighing?

We can think of no one better than Dilys to help us answer these questions.

Dilys’ work is as relevant today as it was in 1985 when Dilys started to write about her observations. As health visitors, we face a constant tension between the drive for so-called efficiency and the importance of not losing sight of the overarching ‘purpose’ of health visiting – to search for health needs and to prevent, identify and support families with problems early, to avoid them reaching crisis point.

To listen to the podcast, click on the arrow in the image below or on the link below:

Listen to Dilys Daws podcast

Also read a discussion piece on Dilys Daws’ observations, ‘Standing next to the weighing scales’ by Alison Morton, CEO at iHV.

Read Voices Blog: Standing next to the weighing scales – learning from Dilys Daws

Workforce essential to Family Hub success- 1001 days podcast

As part of a series of podcasts on the first 1001 days of life, Alison Morton, speaks to Dame Andrea Leadsom DBE on the importance of health visiting. Published today, this podcast was recorded in 2021 following the announcement of the government’s investment in the ‘Start for Life’ vision.

Alison Morton, iHV Executive Director, says:

“The iHV is a non-political charity working with all parties to raise the profile of the first 1001 days and the vital support that health visitors provide to families. With such a weight of evidence to support investment in the earliest years of life, it was good to be able to celebrate some investment in the Start for Life vision with Dame Andrea Leadsom on this podcast. This represents a significant shift in policy direction for babies, young children and families, and recognition of the importance of laying strong foundations for health and wellbeing in the earliest years.

“There is still so much more that needs to be done to translate the Start for Life Vision into reality – we look forward to this work being built upon by the new government. In particular, to translate this vision into reality for all children, much-needed investment in workforce will be needed to end the current postcode lottery of support for families and bring stability to the health visiting profession. We look forward to working with the government on next steps.”

Listen to the podcast here