As a universal health visitor at Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust (RDaSH), where I have worked for about 10 years, I have the privilege of supporting local families to achieve the best possible outcomes in life.
I came to nursing when I was almost 40, beginning my nursing career as a children's nurse, and later continuing my education to become a specialist community public health nurse. I now work with the whole family, placing a strong emphasis on father-and-sibling involvement, while remaining child focused. My role includes undertaking health needs assessments and using behaviour change techniques to enhance health and social wellbeing, as well as identifying wider determinants of health to reduce inequalities.
As a nurse and health visitor, I have become a forward-thinking practitioner, intervening to pre-empt any future issues by promoting good health through a preventive approach, as set out in the mission statement from Public Health England (2019), to empower people to help themselves and their communities to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible.
I am also keen to take on complementary roles linked to my primary role. Following allocation of short-term funding, I therefore recently worked as a Perinatal Wellbeing Health Visitor as part of a pilot. This secondment is why I was nominated for the Public Health Nurse of the Year BJN Award by my line manager, Zoe Parker. This role has allowed me to support mums who were experiencing raised anxieties or low mood following the birth of their baby, and up to 1 year postnatally. I followed a schedule of visits, throughout which I used several evidence-based tools to empower families in their journey of being a parent.
As part of supporting families, I have worked closely with local family hubs, completing my last perinatal wellbeing contact with the family within the hub. This helped engage families into the community setting and promoted working together — and was well received by families. Part of the role was to empower families to embrace the tools on offer to enhance their wellbeing and facilitate their access to the wider community.
Tools and resources
Within the support offered to families, I applied many tools, including the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (Warwick Medical School, 2021), Outcome Stars (Triangle Consulting Social Enterprise, 2023), Me and My Baby (Bywater et al, 2022) and 5 Ways to Wellbeing (Mind, 2023).
The tools have been embraced by families, enabling them to record their emotional and wellbeing journeys. Following the secondment, I feel confident in using these tools and I am convinced that they should be embedded in health visiting practice to enhance positive outcomes of the families we work with in Doncaster.
The 5 Ways to Wellbeing (Mind, 2023) resource helped to improve the mental health of mums and stopped any issues escalating, avoiding the need for referral to more specialist services. Use of the resources enabled me to build the self-esteem of these women, improve their low mood, and empower them to progress their relationships and bonding with their babies. This resource has been embraced by my colleagues and the Trust has provided all members of staff with hard copies to share with parents as and when appropriate.
‘Some of the feedback emphasised how much the families valued the support, with many women saying that they had never felt judged’
My role involved providing up-to-date evidence-based care, as well as offering advice and support to families. I managed my own clinical practice and ensured that safe and effective holistic research-based care was offered to all the families I supported.
As a nurse, I am responsible for facilitating a professional culture, which is open to change, new ideas, concepts and innovations, while reflecting the strategy and direction of the organisation. Within my perinatal wellbeing role, I ensure that clinical and operations policies are adhered to in line with clinical governance.
Training
During my time in post as perinatal wellbeing health visitor, I completed the 2-day Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) train-the-trainer ‘Perinatal Mental Health Champions’ course, following which I cascaded what I had learnt to my colleagues as a perinatal mental health update within the service. The feedback for the three sessions I delivered was all positive.
The Trust also facilitated my completion of dialectical behaviour therapy training, the Solihull Approach course ‘Understanding Trauma’, as well as motivational interviewing training, to assist in the delivery of the support offered to families. These are skills that I utilise daily.
Positive evaluation
At the request of Zoe, in her capacity as service manager, I completed case studies on each family I was working with, who were then contacted by telephone to evaluate the support offered. The positive evaluation of the perinatal wellbeing health visitor pilot was undertaken by an independent professional and shared with the service manager and commissioners.
This positive evaluation has led to more funding for the role, extending it by 2 years. I think there is a huge gap between universal services and the specialist Perinatal Mental Health Team, and I am confident that this pioneering and exciting role will prove invaluable in resolving this. I am honoured to have been offered the post following interview.
During the secondment, I received many heartfelt positive comments from parents with whom I had worked. Some of the feedback emphasised how much the families valued the support, with many women saying that they had never felt judged. In contrast, they said that they had previously felt that their low mood had never been accepted by any other professionals. Much of the psychological distress that the women shared with me described their feelings that they were ‘unfit’ for the role of motherhood.
Their generosity in sharing their experiences and their accounts of their journey have enabled me to support them better in their time of need and, where appropriate, to signpost them to more specialist services. The support I was able to offer empowered them to realise what an amazing job they were doing as mums.
I am currently in my second year of an MSc in Perinatal Mental Health, which builds on my knowledge base and proficiencies. I have a passion for improving the health and wellbeing of children and families, and enjoy the challenge of working with complex families and situations.