Emily Miller, Professional Development Officer, Perinatal & Infant Mental Health
BNURs (Hons), SCPHN – HV, Registered Nurse – Child

Responsible for:

• Supporting the national and international work of the iHV Mental Health Department
• Supporting Director of Innovation and Research, and Mental Health Lead, to develop iHV Perinatal & Infant Mental Health strategy, projects and practice development
• Supporting the production, delivery and quality assurance of iHV mental health training programmes
• Support engagement and co-production with parents and professionals in relation to mental health projects

Tanya qualified as a Health Visitor in 1994. For the last 18 years, Tanya has worked in the field of Domestic Violence including providing support to several refuges and homeless accommodation. Tanya represents CNWL 0-19 services on Harrow MARAC. She is an active member of LB of Harrow Domestic Violence Forum and, as such, has contributed widely to the Domestic Violence agenda.

Tanya established ‘Fresh Start’, a therapeutic group for women and their children run in partnership with a psychologist, which aimed to provide support to those who have suffered from domestic violence. She is currently co-facilitating in partnership with Early Intervention Services Domestic Violence Recovery programme. She has contributed to the Department of Health NP 5: Domestic Violence and Abuse – Professional Guidance, as well as the ICO Domestic Violence Policy and, more recently, the UK Say No More – Hestia campaign. Tanya has presented at several national and international conferences, raising an awareness of Domestic Violence and Abuse as a major public health issue.

Tanya completed her PhD in 2004. Her thesis looked at the rise of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as a diagnostic category in children. In 1999, Tanya went to California to study cross-cultural perspectives of children’s mental health. During this period, she worked with different cultural groups in California, including working on several reservations with Native American children.

Tanya’s interest is in emotional and behavioural problems in both adults and children. She believes that many mental health conditions in adulthood have their origins in childhood, and that early parenting and family support interventions could make a significant contribution to the health and wellbeing of the individual and communities.

Tanya was recognised as Health Visitor of the Year in 2013 for her contribution to the domestic violence agenda. She has been an advocate for many years for marginalised and hard to reach families. Tanya has published in the field of Domestic Violence and she delivers DV training.

As a Fellow of the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) and their DV expert and trainer, Tanya has contributed to the development of DV training for Health Visitors. She is an author of Good Practice Points for Health Visitors.

As a NMC-registered academic community nurse and health visitor, my main research interest is in primary and community health care, especially research that seeks to improve the health and wellbeing of families and children in the community. I hold a strong belief in working in partnership with parents and families and understanding their needs to inform research and practice, most recently the experiences of women in Ukraine of perinatal mental health issues, Becoming Breast Feeding Friendly in the UK, and parenting using the TOPSE evaluation tool. I am currently working with the Children’s Policy Research Unit at UCL on several NIHR-funded studies related to the evaluation of the Family Nurse Partnership in England, the delivery of the Health Visiting Service and Adverse Childhood Experiences, and an NIHR-funded realist review of the delivery of health visiting services in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic in collaboration with Stirling and Oxford Universities. I am also the academic project manager for the Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children study for England in collaboration with the DHSC/DfE and the WHO. I am also a collaborator on a study funded in Australia to examine the impact of the nurse practitioner service on homeless children in South Australia.

As a nurse and health visitor, I have promoted the role of nursing in primary and community care throughout my career, and supervised and managed multiple practice-based studies that examine the nursing contribution to primary health care and public health, with reports on primary care being commissioned by the International Council of Nurses in Geneva. With my co-researchers I developed and validated the TOPSE tool for measuring parenting self-efficacy (www.topse.org) that is now widely used nationally and internationally. This has led to research with Aboriginal communities in Western Australia, where I am Adjunct Professor and the Sir Walter Murdoch outstanding International Scholar at Murdoch University.

As the lead for research capacity in the NIHR ARC for Kent, Surrey and Sussex, I also have a great interest in mentorship and supporting the healthcare workforce to develop their clinical and academic careers as a route to bringing transformation to healthcare delivery and outcomes for patients and families.

Sally, a health visitor and researcher was one of the four founders of the Institute alongside Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, Professor Ros Bryar and Professor Dame Sarah Cowley. Sally a rare academic health visitor, moved into research thirty years ago, initially taking up an academic role, Chair and then working as Associate Dean at the University of Hertfordshire, and more recently at the University of Kent as Professor of Community Nursing and Public Health. Sally’s current research interests are focused on parenting and its impact on child health, both in the UK and internationally. Following her numerous contributions to the planning and launch of the Institute of Health Visiting, Sally joined the new Board as one of its first Trustees. She served on the board for eight years, actively contributing expertise from her extensive research career, and her particular interests in parenting and infant feeding and as a passionate health visitor.

Professor Helen Bedford is Professor of Child Health in the Population, Policy and Practice department of the Institute of Child Health at UCL and Great Ormond Street. Helen is an academic health visitor and one of the country’s leading experts on childhood vaccination and the determinants of vaccine uptake as well as on other child public health issues. Helen is also the chair of the national PCHR (red book) committee – this is a multi-disciplinary committee chaired by Helen and hosted by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Helen has acted as the Institute’s advisor on immunisation and child health developments such as the e-red book. In particular, Helen has been the Institute’s rapid source of evidence-based advice when it is needed for press statements and new developments. With the retirement of Professor Sally Kendall from the iHV board in 2020, the Institute was delighted to welcome Helen into her place as a trustee in 2021 with a particular portfolio for research.

Sharin Baldwin PhD, MSc, PG Dip, BSc (Hons), HV, RM, RN, QN, FiHV

For a full list of Sharin’s publications, visit: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sharin-Baldwin

Matthew Neads, Learning and Development Programme Manager

Responsible for:

• Management and coordination of training programmes provided or delivered by the iHV
• Contributing to governance and risk management of training programmes
• Recording and reporting training event information
• Supporting the review of iHV training resources and the introduction of new programmes

Following experience as a staff nurse at Westminster Hospital, Helen became a health visitor in 1982 and worked in NW London until taking up a research post at University College London in 1986. At UCL, Helen joined a research team to work on a national study of the determinants of childhood vaccine uptake published as “The Peckham Report”. Vaccine acceptance has continued to be the main focus of her research and teaching.  She has extensive experience conducting research into parents’, young people’s and professionals’ knowledge and attitudes to vaccines and in the determinants of vaccine uptake. This has included research with the Gypsy Traveller community. Helen contributes to immunisation training for healthcare professionals locally and nationally and frequently discusses vaccination issues in the media. She is a co-author of modules in the elearning for healthcare immunisation programme https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/immunisation/.

Helen chairs the multi-disciplinary committee hosted by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health which oversees the content and development of the personal child health record (red book). In this capacity, she was a member of the group that developed the WHO growth charts included in PCHRs.

At UCL, Helen is a director of the UCL master’s programme in Paediatrics and Child Health and co-director of Education at UCL GOS ICH. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/child-health/study

Gemma O’Neil – Marcomms & Projects Team Administrator