Any HV's have coping strategies...

[anotherdaygoesby]

I know there a few HV's on here and I'm wondering how they cope with the poverty day to day. I work in a particularly deprived area that has recently switched to UC.

I'm finding more and more the resources available are limited, if non existent. Charities have tightened up criteria . Social workers arereally over stretched and I can never get hold of anyone - esp for my CIN families.

I'm finding more and more I'm just buying food etc and delivering donations on top of my usual working hours. Any advice? Will it get any better?

I'm sorry I'm not a hv, I have a good friend who is one though and she says job has becoming increasingly less about well families and more about child protection. Have you got a local rotary club, could they help with presents for Christmas or birthdays? Do you have a food bank?

Sorry you are feeling this way. It is challenging to have families in need with not enough resources for them. I have in previous posts, tried to be everything to the families I visit, then I realised I was doing the work of Social Workers or other services. I also realised I was not helping families confidence. We are not there to check up on families and can't solve all their problems. Our role is to support them in their parenting and help parents meet the health needs of their children. We can help them feel empowered in their parenting. I think you can only stick to your job description, deliver the HCP and escalate concerns about families. If there are not the services available for you to refer onto, should it be incident reported, especially if it puts a child at risk ? I can only advise to focus on your role, make sure you are encouraging families to seek their owns solutions rather than doing things for them and escalate when there other agencies are not taking on issues you think they should We can't be everything to all people and take everything on, unfortunatley we have to accept this.