I'm a health visitor AMA

[CosmicTeacup]

I'm going to regret posting this aren't I?

@Fluffykins2014 of course I do. At the first visit I tell them it's an offer not a mandatory requirement (child protection plans aside) and in our trust they're given a leaflet explaining this too.

@CosmitTeacup you are good, not one of my hvs said that or gave me the leaflet you mention. Instead assumed the patronising role of mother (sure thing to piss me off, ha ha)

Fair enough, oldage tbh though I go to the HV clinic weekly bc they have tacked a local bf peer support group onto it - used to run just as a peer support group and worked just fine but is now supervised by HV - and I woulf never complain to / about the HVs irl because they are perfectly nice. Just, don't really add much imo. I have 3 dc, two of whom are premie twins and one had ongoing low weight issues. As he should be, that dc is under a specialist paeds dietitian. So we don't use the HV for that. And the others don't need support as they don't have issues.

Anyhow this isn't meant as an attack, you all sound hardworking and kind and you don't write your own JDs!

In the area I worked we had a scheme that supported struggling parents. I could refer families to this scheme and their children would be collected from home two or three times a week and would spend the day with volunteer families. They would get a bath, nutritious meals and one to one time playing. This gave the parents a break and gave the children some of what they were missing at home. This scheme worked extremely well.

When the government introduced Sure Start the money from our local scheme was withdrawn and redirected to Sure Start. The idea was these wonderful new centres would be available for all to attend and would provide groups, toys, support, etc. All good so far! However, what happened was that many parents did attend Sure Start and got a lot out of it but the real needy, hard to reach parents, did not attend. So the families who had originally been helped by our local scheme were now without anything. As HVs we felt very unhappy about this situation, as we could no longer offer the hard to reach families anything other than an invite to Sure Start. As anyone who has ever worked with hard to reach families, will know these are the very people who do not attend groups or actively seek support.

In my opinion this is why Sure Start was a poorly though out intervention.

Public Health Nurse would be better.