'Changing the world one baby at a time': A day in the life of a Shropshire family nurse
NHS leaders have launched a week-long focus on community health services, detailing first-hand experiences of what it's like to work in community health in Shropshire.
Jo Bettison, who is a family nurse at Shropshire Community Health Trust, is one of the first to share her experience of working in the sector.
She said: “The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) is an intensive evidence-based home visiting programme for first time teenage mothers and there are five family nurses who cover the county.
"Our days are always varied and consist of home visiting, safeguarding and assessments of the child's and family's needs and risks.
"We work with families from 16 weeks of pregnancy until the baby is two years old. Therefore, no two days are the same. "
Jo added: "We travel county wide to ensure our clients have an equitable service and we often are dealing with the wider family and their public health needs.
"FNP staff are integral in delivering the healthy child programme within the multi-agency arena.
"On a typical day we can do a combination of practices as we flexibly work to meet the needs of our clients.
"We work with parents around healthy relationships, breast feeding support, smoking, play, behavioural issues, attachment, mental health and domestic abuse amongst many other public health messages.
"We have a large toolkit of resources that enables us to provide holistic, intensive one to one support with our parents and families.
"The work we do is very much built upon the therapeutic relationships with our clients.
"Many of our clients have experienced adverse childhood events and we work closely with them to reach their full parenting potential which enables them to achieve self-efficacy and the child to reach their full developmental goals – changing the world one baby at a time.”
Celebrating Community Services Week aims to make sure that the breadth of community services and their importance to people's lives and the smooth running of the health and care system is well understood.
