Calling all iHV members – if you missed our iHV Insights Special webinar on “Safeguarding Learning” held on Wednesday, then don’t worry as the resources from this iHV Insights, as well as the previous ones, are available to iHV members to access as a free member benefit afterwards.

On Wednesday 9 November, we were joined by a great panel of experts including:

  • Annie Hudson, Chair of the Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, and Sally Shearer, Panel Member – Nursing representative: Learning from the deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, and the implications for health visiting practice
  • Trish Stewart, Associate Director of Safeguarding, Central London Community Healthcare NHS: Courage and compassion in safeguarding

Click here to catch up on iHV Insights Special: Safeguarding Learning, as well as previous iHV Insights sessions:

If you were unable to join this week’s live event, iHV members can access the following after each iHV Insights event:

  • Recording of the live iHV Insights webinar
  • Pdf of webinar slides
  • Record of Attendance/ Reflection template for you to download and complete for each iHV Insights attended

Next iHV Insights

Come along, learn from National experts, and have an opportunity to ask questions.

We are delighted to announce our agenda for this event as follows:

  • The Domestic Abuse Bill – Implications for Health Visiting practice: Dr Tanya Dennis, Domestic Abuse Expert Adviser, iHV
  • Updates from The For Baby’s Sake Trust: Judith Rees and Amanda McIntyre
  • Introducing the iHV Domestic Abuse Toolkit: Vicky Gilroy and Philippa Bishop, iHV

The webinar will be recorded and will be available to iHV Members who are unable to join the live webinar on our website after the event.

Please join us. Spaces are limited so please do book early to avoid disappointment. Please use your iHV membership number to book your place.

About iHV Insights

iHV Insights are webinars run just for our members.

These live online sessions are of interest to frontline health visitors and student health visitors, as well as service leads, commissioners and wider members of the health visiting team, both in the UK and with lots of transferable learning for our international members too.

If you are not an iHV member, join us today to access these resources and many other member benefits.

Don’t worry if you missed yesterday’s iHV Insights webinar on “Parental awareness of respiratory illness in babies and children”, as the recording and resources are now available.

logo for webinar

The VSCE-funded iHV Respiratory Project has now successfully delivered 4 webinars, all of which are available to watch again on the iHV website on our new iHV Respiratory Illness page – this iHV Insights event was the fourth session in the series. Thanks to the funding, all resources (including all the webinars) on the Respiratory Illnesses webpage are open access.

This VSCE HW funded project aimed to share key information and resources on respiratory illnesses in under 3s – with a focus on fever, breathing difficulties and wheeze, croup, and bronchiolitis/RSV and supporting HVs in their role working with families. This includes ensuring the promotion of and access to resources already in use including the Healthier Together website and iHV Parent Tips on fever and breathing difficulties and wheeze.

Yesterday, we were joined by a fabulous panel of experts who were able to provide an update on the evidence and lots of helpful tips on supporting families with raising awareness of respiratory illness in babies and children.

Our expert panel of speakers:

  • Dr Ben Hughes on the EPNS4 Surge e-learning course which focuses on care and support at home
  • Eluned Hughes and Erika Radford, The British Lung Foundation and Asthma UK on their helplines

Webinar resources

As well as the webinar resources being available on our new iHV Respiratory Illness webpage, they are also available for iHV members to access via the iHV Insights webpage – together with their iHV Insights Record of Attendance/Reflection template to download and complete.

So, if you are already a member head over to our iHV Insights page now to download your record of attendance and check out all our previous iHV Insights. Or join us today and gain access to future iHV Insights webinars, as well as the recordings of past sessions.


 

We are delighted to share 5 updated Parent Tips (providing advice for parents and families) and an updated Good Practice Points resource providing up-to-date evidence and references for our members.

Updated Parent Tips

(advice to share with parents and families)

 

Updated GPPs

Please note that GPPs are available to iHV members only do remember to sign in to access them:

 


Please note that GPPs are available to iHV members only.

If you’re not a member, please join us to get access to all of our resources.

The iHV is a self-funding charity – we can only be successful in our mission to strengthen health visiting practice if the health visiting profession and its supporters join us on our journey. We rely on our membership to develop new resources for our members.

So do join us now!

button small_200

We have updated a couple of our Good Practice Points, that are now available on our website. We also have an updated Parent Tip for you to share and point your parents to.

Check them out below.

Our GPPs are just one of the great benefits all iHV Members have!

 

 

GPP | How to reduce unintentional injuries in under 5-year olds

This GPP outline some key points in effective engagement with parents and guidance to reduce injuries along with up-to-date evidence and references.

 

 

 

 


GPP | Keeping infants and young children safe around dogs in the home

This GPP sets out to support health visitors working with families where a baby or young child may be at risk of harm from a dog.

 

 

 

 


PT | Sleep and the older child

Lots of things happen during sleep; babies and children grow, their brains develop, their bodies heal and repair, and their brains process the day. Children who are overtired in the long term can become more active and wanting attention, and this can be mistaken for not being tired.

 

 

 


Please note that GPPs are available to iHV Members only.

If you’re not a member, please join us to get access to all of our resources.

The iHV is a self-funding charity – we can only be successful in our mission to strengthen health visiting practice if the health visiting profession and its supporters join us on our journey. We rely on our membership to develop new resources for our members.

So do join us now!

button small_200

We are delighted to share news of our Changing Conversations Stakeholder event which took place virtually on 25 February. The event was a great opportunity to showcase our brand new coproduced Changing Conversations Toolkit (with many new resources to support those working with children with autism and their parents) and Changing Conversations Ambassador training.

iHV was supported by the Burdett Trust for Nursing to develop and offer a programme of training for health visitors to be “Ambassadors for Changing Conversation” for children with autism and their families. The training has been co-produced by parents and professionals to support health visitors in their role with families.

The new Changing Conversations resources were presented to all those who were involved in the development of the resources and a wide variety of stakeholders including parents, people with lived experience, Department for Education, NHS England & NHS Improvement, Health Education England, various NHS Trusts, charities working in the sector, and universities. For new resources please see links below for new Parent Tips and Good Practice Points.

The stakeholder event provided a great opportunity to share the resources with such enthusiastic people who have a real passion to improve the lives and life outcomes of children with autism and their families. The next step is for us to work with these stakeholders to look at how we can expand these resources and the awareness session to enable more health visitors to access these, and to consider how we address suggestions for development. These included considerations of how the resources can be tailored to meet your local needs as well as wider audiences including the Early Years workforce.

For updates on the project, do ask your local Changing Conversations Ambassador or contact us at [email protected]


New Resources

Parent Tips

To support the Changing Conversations project, iHV has published a series of new Parent Tips for health visitors to share with parents and families:

All families in the UK with children aged 0-5 years have a health visitor. Health visitors lead the “Healthy Child Programme”. This is a national public health programme to improve the health of babies, children and their families to enable a happy, healthy childhood and provide the foundations of good health into adult life.

Speaking, understanding and communicating are important life skills. It may seem that these skills happen naturally. They don’t. Parents have a very important role to play in helping their child’s development.

It can sometimes be hard for parents/carers of children with autism to understand and support their child’s behaviour. This can be frustrating for both the parents/carers and the child. This parent tip offers some simple strategies to support parents/carers to communicate what they would like their child to do.

 

Good Practice Points

To support the Changing Conversations project, iHV has published a series of new Good Practice Points for health visitors on working with children with autism:

One of the key aims of the Healthy Child Programme (2009) is to support ‘school readiness’, which includes the early identification of children showing signs of developmental delay and those who would benefit from early intervention. Speech, language and communication (SLC) skills are a core part of this and the promotion and review of these skills should be a part of every health visitor contact.

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability. Autistic people see, hear and feel the world differently to other people.

The key to a successful start at school, for children with complex health needs / SEND, lies in partnership working during preparation, transition and follow up. The number of children with complex health needs / SEND is increasing year on year. 3.3% of all pupils in schools in England have an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan, a rise from 3.1% in 2019. A further 12.1% of all pupils have SEN support, without an EHC plan, up from 11.9% in 2019.

This GPP aims to support understanding of the what’s behind behaviour so that timely advice and support can be offered to families, tailored to the needs of the child. Behaviour, even when it appears different, is always about meeting a need. Everything we do is driven by our needs, which are common to all adults and children. People and children with autism have some additional needs. By understanding underlying behaviours, we can support children to explore their potential and to have their needs met in a different way if their behaviour is harmful or challenging.

 


Please note that these GPPs are available to Changing Conversations Ambassadors, those they have trained and iHV members.

If you’re not a member, please join us to get access to all of our resources.

The iHV is a self-funding charity – we can only be successful in our mission to strengthen health visiting practice if the health visiting profession and its supporters join us on our journey. We rely on our membership to develop new resources for our members.

So do join us now!

button small_200

Did you miss yesterday’s iHV Insights webinar on “Bereavement, the NBCP & Health Visiting” that was held yesterday (25 February 2021)? As an iHV member you can catch up on the event by accessing the resources on our website.

Yesterday, we were joined by a fabulous panel of experts who were able to provide an update on the evidence and lots of helpful tips on supporting families experiencing bereavement and information on the National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP).

Our expert panel of speakers:

  • Marc Harder, Project Lead, National Bereavement Care Pathway Sands
  • Clare Worgan, Training & Learning Resources Manager Sands
  • Jo Carroll, HV & National Lead, CONI Programme Lullaby Trust

The great news is that all the iHV Insights webinars are available for iHV members to access as a free member benefit after the event.

Click here to catch up on our highly popular member only iHV Insights sessions so far – remember to login to the website to access them!

 


Bookings open for next iHV Insights

 

Bookings are now open for our next iHV Insights: “Working with children with autism – resources to support your practice“, taking place on Thursday 18 March 15:30 to 16:30.

We will announce our panel of expert speakers soon.

If you are not an iHV member, join us today to book your place at these highly popular events and gain access to these and many other resources, as well as many other member benefits.

Close to 551,000 people in the UK are managing a mental health condition.  A large proportion of these are women who may be contemplating pregnancy or are at risk of unplanned pregnancy.

A partnership, comprising Tommy’s, Public Health England, NHS England and King’s College London, has developed a set of supportive resources for women with mental health conditions who are planning a pregnancy or may wish to become pregnant in the future.

Mental health conditions can refer to a wide range of conditions. The new resources have been developed to specifically offer support to those who have been diagnosed with a mental health condition, including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, severe depression and psychosis. They aim to help women with SMI make informed decisions around when to get pregnant, what to watch out for and how their condition could be treated before, during and after pregnancy.

The resources include new online information and support hub for anyone with severe mental illness (SMI) planning a pregnancy, as well as practical guidance for the frontline healthcare professionals who support them. Tommy’s has also updated their Planning for Pregnancy tool so that users with severe mental illness get specific tailored advice.

#PregnancyInformation #SupportWithMentalHealth #TryingToConceive #ttc #Preconception #TryingForABaby #FreeResources #MentalHealthMatters

 

Here are Top 5 tips for anyone planning a pregnancy with a diagnosed mental health condition, click on the video below:

Calling all iHV members – did you miss our iHV Insights webinar on “Health visiting during a pandemic and beyondheld last week (Thursday 16 July)?

Not to worry as the resources from this iHV Insights, as well as the previous ones, are available to iHV members to access as a free member benefit afterwards.

On Thursday 16 July, we were joined by a fabulous panel of experts who were able to provide a focus particularly on ensuring the needs of vulnerable children are met and practical ways to improve virtual contacts during COVID-19 and beyond.

Our expert panel of speakers included:

  • Professor Viv Bennett CBE, Chief Nurse and Director Maternity and Early Years, Public Health England
  • Dr Rosemary Singh, Specialist CAMHS Practitioner EPEC and Family Partnership Programmes / Clinical Psychologist, Centre for Parent and Child Support
  • Gail Barker, Infant Feeding Coordinator, Devon Public Health Nursing

Click here to catch up on iHV Insights Health visiting during a pandemic and beyond, as well as previous iHV Insights sessions:

If you are unable to join the live event, after the event, iHV members can access:

  • Recording of the live iHV Insights webinar
  • Pdf of webinar slides
  • Responses to the Q&A session – key themes to unanswered questions provided by our expert panel (we aim to publish these within 1 week of the event)
  • Record of Attendance/ Reflection template for you to download and complete for each iHV Insights attended

Next iHV Insights

Date for your diary – iHV Insights webinar: “Training as a health visitor during a pandemic” – 15:30-16:30 20 August.

Further details,  including how to book, coming soon!

About iHV Insights

iHV Insights are webinars run just for our members.

These live online sessions are of interest to frontline health visitors and student health visitors, as well as service leads, commissioners and wider members of the health visiting team, both in the UK and with lots of transferable learning for our international members too.

If you are not an iHV member, join us today to access these resources and many other member benefits.

Working in a pandemic has brought many challenges to both families and the health visiting service – but, unsurprisingly, the health visiting service in many areas has risen to these challenges with great professionalism, developing many innovations and workarounds to ensure that children and families receive the support that they need.

But you can’t pour from an empty cup and it is still important for health visitors to have time to reflect and learn during this pandemic which may continue for many weeks. To help you, we are pleased to publish today a bundle of five fabulous Good Practice Points, as well as hold our first virtual online iHV Member Event tomorrow (Thursday) on “COVID-19 in children and managing minor childhood illnesses”.

As a Centre of Excellence, the Institute supports the development of universally high quality health visiting practice so that health visitors can effectively respond to the health needs of all children, families and communities, enabling them to achieve their optimum level of health, thereby reducing health inequalities. To achieve our aim, we are constantly working to improve and develop benefits for our health visitor Associate and Student members, and our Friend members who work closely with health visiting  services.

We know through feedback from our membership surveys that our Good Practice Points (GPPs) are the resources most valued by our members. We try to write Good Practice Points that are relevant to health visitors and where there might be gaps currently.  We write GPPs with the help of authors that are experts and informative, give the evidence base and enable health visitors to be better equipped in their clinical practice.

Good Practice Points (GPPs) are available for members of the iHV; and Parent Tips (PTs) are available to parents who access our website or via health visitors sharing them – we work with parents to develop our Parent Tips.

New resources

Today, we are pleased to publish a selection of new GPPs to support our members in practice. These are:

Any new GPP/PT Topics or would you like to be involved?

We would really love to hear from you if you have any specific topics that you think would benefit from having  a GPP and/ or PT created, or if you would like to write a GPP or PT, or if you would like to be involved in our peer review process.  Peer reviewers look at all GPPs and PTs during our production process and we feed their comments back to the author.

Please contact [email protected]  if you would like to find out more about getting involved or with your thoughts and ideas of new GPPs and PTs.


Please note that GPPs are available to iHV members only.

If you’re not a member, please join us to get access to all of our resources.

The iHV is a self-funding charity – we can only be successful in our mission to strengthen health visiting practice if the health visiting profession and its supporters join us on our journey. We rely on our membership to develop new resources for our members.

So do join us now!

button small_200

 

While the impact of COVID-19 on children is thought to be minimal, evidence is emerging that children and families are unsure about how to manage common childhood illnesses and when/ where to seek medical advice.

The Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health (RCPCH) has raised concerns that families are worried about the risks of infection from COVID-19 and are not accessing medical advice as soon as is needed. To support parents, the RCPCH and “Healthier Together” have produced a guide, “Advice for parents during coronavirus”.

The iHV has also been working with “Healthier Together” and today we are launching five newParent Tips” on managing the most common childhood illnesses, with signposting to further advice for parents to help ensure children get the right care at the right time and right place.

We have also developed a new Good Practice Point to support health visitors make the best use of these Parent Tip resources and provide evidence-based advice when parents are unsure what to do when their child is unwell.

Acknowledgement and thanks:

The content of these Parent Tip advice sheets was developed by “Healthier Together” and adapted by the Institute of Health Visiting with permission from Dr Sanjay Patel. More information on the full range of Healthier Together resources and what to do if you are worried that your child is unwell are available here: