Health visitor training

[houmousandcarrotsandwich]

Does anyone know how you train to be a health visitor?
Im currently on maternity leave and not planning on returning to my regular job before October. But because my health visitor has been so useless, I've been inspired and I'm considering re-training and becoming a health visitor (mad?).

see here

quite a lot of work. you'd need to train as a nurse then a health visitor

Most of the hv i know firstly trained as either mws or nurses. Not sure though.

I'm fairly sure that my first HV had never been a nurse. Of course that was a while ago and requirements may since have changed.

She was lovely, and really did her best for me. But when I moved surgeries, and had a new HV who had been a nurse and was a mother herself, I noticed the difference! So IMO you've already got one of the necessary qualifications .

Hi houmous - at present you need to train as a nurse or midwife first and then do a degree in public health nursing - although judging by some of the "advice" I have seen HV's give as reproduced here I sometimes doubt the training.
I've been both a nurse and a midwife and only needed to do a year's course to become a HV.

There is talk of a direct entry type course which seems a good idea to me - no reason that someone without a nursing/midwifery qualification could not do the job. If the Conservatives win the next election they reckon that they will train another 4000 HVs so a direct entry course may come out of that.

I wonder if it's a way of getting young people to do child unfriendly hours of nursing, midwifery with all the shiftwork
and then once they have kids they need child friendly hours so they get to be health visitors

Thanks for replies. Am suprised they are that qualified! (am shocked that mine is!!)

I am amazed sometimes as well houmous. A poster on MN has just related how a HV advised her to give her "breastfed and just started weaning" baby a rusk!

Crikey, have just read this as thought the same myself ... my experience of HV was not good in my area and I was positive I could do a better job, but they are really. trained nurses and midwives! I am, like, totally amazed that they are trained, I can hardly believe it!

Why do you need extensive training to be a health visitor? I have a caseload of over 500 families which includes supporting mothers with PND,bereavement, domestic abuse,disabled children,parents with learning difficulties,drug addicts with babies,young teenage mums,and numerous child abuse cases which I will need to attend court for. Also clinics when I advise mums on breastfeeding,parenting etc.
Its not all about weighing healthy babies and talking about weaning !! Try it as a job then you may appreciate the worth of health visitors to society.

JollyPirate - ditto but skips and wotsits

jaffa - I appreciate that but I would excpect somone with extensive training to at least have heard of silent reflux, and also to have wanted to query why a 4 month old baby was throwing up after every bottle for 2 months even though reflux was now being treated and suggested that he may be dairy intolerant, instead of asying well he is follwoing his line so he is OK. She also said that seh specialises in working with army families as they aer always violent

In defence of HV's the one I had with DD was fantastic and I am so pleased that she has gone to work with more vulnerable and very young mothers. They are very lucky.

Actually a health visitor does need extensive mental health training when discussing weaning with a mother who has anorexic tenancies.

I think that part of the problem is that lot of people who run clinics aren't actually health visitors. In my area they often use nursery nurses or community nurses instead of health visitors. However many of the mothers do not know the difference or have the confidence to ask if they person weighing their baby actually has a masters in Public health.

Hence all kinds of amazing sh!T is spouted by the unqualified.

jaffacake2, there is no way on earth I would want your job. I would be rubbish at it.

Thanks for the aknowledgment.

I guess i just needed to say the reality of the job which seems very different from most peoples perception of health visitors. Everyone who has a baby has a visit from an HV and these include some really awful situations. About 90% of referrals to Childrens social services for the under 5s come from HVs.

Sometimes I just get really fed up of people rubbishing health visitors, perhaps I'll go back to kids nursing instead which is where I was a lifetime ago.
Happy Easter All! x

I'm currently half way through my health visitor training. I love it but its really hard work trying to juggle a million things at once. The uni work is totally full on too, there are not enough hours in the day!

HV is a valuable job and can make a real difference to children's lives.

JollyPirate i would be concerned at a direct entry HV training though. I draw constantly on my nursing experience, unless it was made a three year course like pre reg nursing or midwifery.

Personally, I would not want direct entry HV training. I have met some first year nursing students and even the mature students can be quite naive.

I think its important that people develop their people skills before being a health visitor. Not all jobs foster the emotional maturity community nursing requires. Or not at the level that a health visitor needs.

In my area the first year nursing students on placements are sent to the breastfeeding cafe as a form of damage limitation. Ie. the mothers are relatively sane and its a place where their idiotic comments are quite harmless.

First year nursing student: "Oh, my Gawd. Surely THAT child isn't still breastfeeding"

Me: "She is nine months old, she is still a babe in arms. She can't walk or talk yet. Somehow I don't think Channel Four is going to interested in filming her yet!"

The health visitor in charge looks on in quiet amusement.

I think a big problem is that health visitors pay is too low to attract suitable people. I believe that the pay is the same as a hospital ward sister.

Who in their right mind is going to leave such a job and risk having the all wroth of society brought down on them if they fail to save the life of the next baby P?

There are some people who should wait before becoming health visitors. For example I think that if someone has experienced postnatal depression then its important that they are fully recovered.

I think it has been useful that the health visitor I have had with my daughter experienced severe postnatal depression 27 years ago. The lady in question is very gifted at her job.

However I had a listening visit from a different health visitor with my son where I spent most of the listening to HER experiences of mental illness. Her experiences were just to raw not to interfere with her work.

as a community nursery nurse with 14 years working in health visiting team and having 5 children myself i feel i have enough knowledge and expertise to advise mums in clinics and know when medical knowledge is more appropriate. i have worked with 26 year old health visitors with no children whos knowledge is 'text book' degree level, and i safely say i could advise equally well and in most cases better. i work with childrens services, drug abusers and sex offenders and earn substancially less than hv's....reallytired, you have wound me up!!!!you dont need a public health degree to be able to run a baby clinic. ps nursery nurses and community nurses are hardly unqualified.

I think direct entry is not a good idea for HVs, largely for the same reason l think it was a bad idea for mws.

I've found such an incredible range of competency when it comes to Health Visitors - the poor ones are truly a waste of time. However, my current HV is absolutely fantastic. She's previously been a midwife, and I believe a mental health nurse before being a HV. I think she may have literally saved my life. (I'm suffering from horrible PND, and have just come home after 6 weeks in a mother and baby unit.) I can imagine it must be quite a stressful job. Not exactly a reply to the OP, but just wanted to add my support for HV being seen as an incredibly important job that deserves a lot of training and government investment.

Just seen how much HV's earn - am it doesn't pay more than that.

I am part-time on 16 hours a week with a stressful caseload and my take home pay is under £850. Thank goodness for tax crdits.

In any case there will be no pay rises this year as I believe there is going to be a public sector pay freeze. On a more positive note we have 5 HV's due to qualify in September.

am considering this in about 4/5 years time (am MH and Adult trained already) when the DC are both in primary school. I will more than likely need to do a Return to Practice course in nursing first and THEN do HV shortened degree course (1yr duration). The hours are fab for when you have a family.

agree with the others, you need to do your nursing qualification first (any branch), gain two years post reg experience and then you can train to be a HV. will take one year to do.

You would be talking at least 5 years before you'd be able to practice as a HV.

Almost fifteen years on and still feel scarred by my encounter with the childless moron who called herself a health visitor. She more or less single handedly ruined my first six weeks with a new baby. Never saw an HV after that six weeks and got on much better with the second baby as a result. By then though I was a more experienced mother but it would have been helpful if ante natal classes had warned that the quality was very variable and usually poor. What still fails to amaze me is how a health visitor can fulfil her role whilst looking as though she needs a jolly good wash. Saw three - one looked clean - not good enough.