To want to become a health visitor

[crymeanocean]

I'm a registered children's nurse and I'm considering trying to find a job in health visiting. However every Mumsnet thread I see, all just seem to be bashing their health visitors. Aibu to want to become one? Did anyone like/ find their health visitor useful ?

Are any of you health visitors and could tell me what your day to day job is like ? How flexible the hours are around childcare etc ?

Thanks

My Heath visitor was absolutely lovely. She really supported me and gave me lots of advice. She often spoke about her own children and what experiences she'd had with them, which made her very personable.

She arranged counselling for PND and has always been just a phone call away for a chat, advice or even to just celebrate small victories with me. I couldn't knock her tbh.

Not positive experiences here I’m afraid. I’ve seen at least 5 that I can remember and generally found them to be either overly and unnecessarily interfering (with breast feeding) or dismissive/ aloof (when I said I was anxious after one of my births). I never formed any relationship with them and yet I’ve never had an issue with medical professionals before. I found my midwives really kind and helpful and the transition to seeing a hv was disappointing every time. My younger dc only saw a hv twice as I avoided them, weighed them at a nursery nurse led clinic and took any concerns straight to my gp instead.

I love my health visitor. I went to school with her children so when we first met it was a bit of an ice breaker. And she's very on the ball if somethings wrong but also very empathetic and doesn't just dismiss my feelings if I'm worried about something I don't need to. She also explains what's going to happen next every time so I'm not just left in the dark.
I understand there's rogue ones who probably are shit at their job or who aren't telling people the correct things but luckily I haven't had that.
I think go for it if you want to, in any profession you're going to have someone slating your job or who's had a bad experience with someone else in the profession.

I liked all my health visitors and would love their job. I looked into it but have no science or medical background so can't. I teach. Can you see a way in to something similar for me? I love working with people, families, small children.

@Poetryinaction Have you looked at working in a children's centre or whether you would have the right qualifications to be a home visitor or work for Portage? These jobs would involve working with and supporting young children and families.

My health visitor was an absolutely horrible.

One of mine didn't even recognise mastitis!
It's like any job, really. Some will be bloody useless, and others brilliant.

I loved mine. My dd was prem and our hv came out every Friday for 9 months!
We had her last week for the 4-5 year check and it was sad to see her leave.
She didn’t have any great advice, but she was a terrific support in the early months.
Good luck OP.

Out local HVs are lovely. They’re on the whole really knowledgeable and supportive. However, they’re getting stretched thinly and not able to offer anything like what they used to do I imagine it’s gwtting more stressful.

My hv was awesome.
She recognised that I was having a tough time and came to see me way more than recommended to give me support. I don't know how I would have coped with my first without her.

Have to say, she was always rushed off her feet and now I have my second and need less support, the input is a bit generic.

My health visitor was really nice. She gave me useful advice and was kinder to me about mixed feeding that I expected (I thought I would get flamed).

The one's I have spoken to at the local baby clinic have been nice and answered my questions.

The people that I gave struggled with are the people who work on the admin side of it with god awful attitudes. That has tainted my experience and I hated speaking to them.

The people that I know that don't like their HVs dislike them because their HV pointed out things like developmental delays or possible health concerns. Which is their job. People take it very personally rather than seeing it as the child potentially needing a bit of support to meet milestones.

My DS is 3 and we saw our HV twice between birth and 6 weeks, then she left and we were never assigned another one. I took him to be weighed, all done by nurses nurses and the development reviews were also done by nursery nurses. I assume we aren't in need enough to see a HV as due to cuts etc others need their help more.

I did phone the general line once to speak to someone about concerns over DS' speech. She was quite dismissive, one quick phone call. 5 months later he was referred for ASD assessment. Not contacted them since.

I had a lovely supportive health visitor when my first was born, although I think services are probably more stretched now. My next health visitor was ok but a bit useless. She brought a trainee round with her once who was an ex midwife re training to be a health visitor for the better hours and easier life. She was loving it. I was under her care during her training at my surgery and got on great with her and she was like seeing a friend every week. I had pnd and actually cried when her post ended and she had to move on to another surgery. She was the only bit of support I had and I still think of her.

my HV experience was bad but DC1 has autism and severe learning diffs and the HV thought nothing of a almost 3 year old non-verbal child in nappies with a lot of self harming behaviours. She blocked a referral to the paeds and Salt until DC was 3 cause being non verbal, not understanding even simple instructions, not being toilet trained is all 'normal' until 3 and 'all children develop at different rates'. The amount of stress the refusal to help/refer it caused us still haunts me. Not to mention the delay in dx and getting help (salt etc). It was an awful year when you notice your child doesn't develop and all you get are lectures about being an overanxious first time mum. It triggered a depression for me.

I do not know what HVs are there for. They clearly have very limited and damaging understanding of child development (esp if the development is atypical), I can get a scale and weigh my baby myself and when it is unwell, I see the GP.

Needless to say, DC2 had no HV involvement.

what do you hope to achieve by becoming a HV?

I have been a health visitor for a good few years and I think the job works really well around a family. I work 3 days a week but I would find it hard to manage my caseload on less than that. The training is tough but personally I think it's worth it because I really love the job. We do get a bit of a bad wrap and yes I'm sure some health visitors are not wonderful. Also a lot of people don't really understand our role and to be fair it's quite big and hard to define. I would generally say we are there to support the health, growth and development of under 5s. This includes social and emotional. We often have to watch and wait and don't always make referrals straight away. Out with the routine visits we only visit those who need us. Some of these people don't want to be seen and some that need help we don't know about. You will rarely be thanked. Some of the things we see are deeply upsetting especially as a parent. Sometimes you can really see a difference you make to a family or child's life and this is where the reward comes from.

I had a couple of crap health visitors and a really nice one.

The nice one:

• Communicated with me as an equal and assumed competent parent, rather than being condescending.
• Took my opinions and concerns seriously even though she didn't necessarily share them.
• Communicated clearly and factually when she felt there was a problem.
• Genuinely seemed to enjoy interacting with DS (always a winner to pretend that a mother's child is the most beautiful/charming/clever child you've ever met).
• Was willing to meet me halfway and compromise when possible, rather than being seemingly obstructive for no reason.

I never trusted health visitors for breastfeeding advice because I had heard such horror stories, but it would be good if you could do some research into breastfeeding or at least know to refer mothers to local peer support or specialist support services if you don't know the answer to a problem.

I would also appreciate if a health visitor was open to learning about new things.

Mine was delightful. She came every week or sent a nursery nurse to weigh my twins until they were gaining weight consistently so I didn’t have to go to a clinic. She gave fab advice and was supportive m!

My friends a health advisor and she is amazing. She's never been my health advisor but whenever I ask her something she's been so helpful and reassuring

Having met a few it felt that most had gone for the job for the wrong reasons ( good hours? Pay?). My totally useless HV would come to our house and stay there for at least two hours, expecting tea and biscuits and mostly telling us about her holidays and new kitchen after asking two minutes of questions about our baby. We used to dread it! Clearly some Hvs are not overworked!

I've had one absolutely lovely, well informed and intelligent one- the youngest and the most recent, in facta few who have been nice enough but huge, glaring gaps in their knowledge of child development and breastfeedingand one who was OK but a bit pompous. I don't know what the training is like for HVs after they qualify, but some of them must never go - recommending CIO and weaning tiny babies.

I've never really liked my health visitors. I've found them to be intrusive and not particularly knowledgeable. When I've approached them previously I've always been advised to speak to my GP, they've never had the answer.

They're great if you need to know how much your baby weighs though.

I didn't and don't really know what their role is. I dont think this helps with expectations.
Are they meant to offer general baby / parenting advice or only deal with babies / children with health / development / well being concerns. Luckily so far I have had very minimal contact with them as I haven't needed help so just a few weigh in sessions in the first few weeks (with assistants) and the standard development checks- which are 10 weeks, 9 months and 2 years in my area. Each time I did see them it was some one different so no relationship as such. As such I dont think I would contact them as first point of contact about anything - I would go via my gp.

Thanks everyone, it's really interesting to hear people's personal experiences and what they found helpful. I'm really hoping that I can be one of the good ones and help provide info and support when it's needed 🤞🏻