Job responsibilities
Principal Responsibilities
To recruit and engage eligible, pregnant young women to the FNP programme.
To use programme materials and methods in the clients homes in order to: Improve the outcomes of pregnancy; Improve childrens health and development by enabling parents to provide more sensitive and competent care of them; and Improve parental life-course by helping parents plan future pregnancies, complete their education, and find work.
To work therapeutically with a range of family members to promote behaviour change and positive outcomes for children and families.
To take a lead professional role when required where children and young people with additional needs require an integrated package of support from more than one practitioner/service.
Through continuous monitoring and engagement in reflective supervision, to ensure that expertise in clinical methods is developed and maintained, that the service offered is of high quality and the programme is implemented with fidelity.
To work in collaboration with local statutory and mainstream services to ensure that families become confident in accessing a range of other universal health and support services and are ready to graduate from the programme when the child is two years old.
To prescribe as an independent/supplementary or a nurse prescriber, in a safe and cost effective manner.
Professional
Undertake home visits in accordance with FNP model.
Use high level interpersonal and communication skills to provide and receive complex and often highly sensitive information. Use strengths based, solution focused strategies and motivational interviewing skills to enable families to develop behaviour change strategies.
Utilise specialist knowledge acquired through the FNP learning programme, events and other study, together with reflections on experience, to deliver the FNP programme effectively.
Work effectively in potentially highly distressing or highly emotional circumstances, e.g. safeguarding children or family breakdown.
Develop therapeutic relationships, requiring in-depth mental attention and concentration for extended periods, and promote adaptive behaviour change in the family home and other environments.
Use the six FNP domains as a framework for programme delivery.
Use professional and clinical judgement to undertake detailed assessments of clients and their families and analyse complex family situations in order to develop appropriate clinical interventions.
Actively engage and work with fathers and other members of the extended family to achieve positive outcomes for children.
Apply knowledge and skills to a range of clinical and family situations.
Work within the FNP model to initiate, plan and co-ordinate clients care in consultation and collaboration with other professionals and agencies involved in providing services to women and their families. This includes initiating CAF and taking lead professional role where required.
At all times keep the safety of the baby and the young person in mind, and work within local safeguarding policies as appropriate.
Act on own interpretation of assessed clinical situation within the home setting. Able to refer client onto other specialist services as required on own authority.
Contribute to the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme (HCP), including professional assessments of childrens growth, development and language skills.
Positively and effectively represent the vision and principles of the FNP programme in actions and communications to internal and external clients, stakeholders and services.
Manage own workload by working independently within appropriate occupational guidelines, referring to FNP Lead where appropriate.
Visit clients over a wide geographical area and within flexible working hours, this may include following families to neighbouring primary care trust/local authorities to enable them to continue to benefit from the programme.
Propose changes to working practices or procedures for own work area as role evolves.
Complete full, accurate and contemporaneous records.
Create regular reports on local site replication performance for the programme board.
Analyse reports on data for service development and develop quality improvement measures to assure data quality, completeness and accuracy, as well as improvements in programme delivery.
Develop systems for user involvement and support clients to offer feedback on the service received, integrating this into local or national improvement measures.
Develop local procedures for FNP, taking into account FNP National Unit guidance.
Be aware of, inform and abide by, provider services approved policies, standards and quality assurance initiatives.
Prescribe as an independent/supplementary or a nurse prescriber and ensure that prescribing is undertaken in a safe, cost effective manner.
Administrative
Provide timely and accurate data to monitor programme fidelity and for research purposes.
Maintain own caseload files and have good keyboard skills.
Input FNP data onto the Turas database and produce individual reports relating to own caseload to monitor programme fidelity.
Use computer software to create reports for other professionals and safeguarding meetings as required.
Utilise FNP resources to plan for visits and develop packages of materials for these.
Team
Participate fully in, team activities, collaborating with others to achieve team goals and quality improvement measures.
Participate in quality improvement efforts with colleagues.
Audit own performance and participate in performance review with supervisor.
Elicit and consider differing viewpoints when analysing complex issues.
Recognise the accomplishments of team colleagues.
Support a safe environment for open discussion.
Prioritise work; manage time effectively by utilising individual skills, knowledge and competencies.
Provide mentoring for new team members, advice to colleagues and to team administrator as required.
Professional Development
Assess own learning needs and agree strategies to meet them with the supervisor.
Actively engage in skill building to meet all competency requirements.
Successfully complete the learning programme required to deliver the FNP programme, including team based and face to face elements.
Undertake additional professional development as required.
Prepare for and actively engage in weekly individual supervision.
Undertake joint home visits with supervisor every four months.
Attend and participate in two-weekly case discussions and staff meetings.
Keep informed of current healthcare and parenting developments to provide high quality home visiting services.
Clinical Governance / Quality
Maintain professional registration and portfolio in line with NMC requirements.
Participate in individual clinical/safeguarding supervision and preceptorship, mentorship with the team.
Support and facilitate the training and development of other team members who need to improve service delivery. This includes record keeping and improving clinical competency.
Maintain contemporaneous records that enable service delivery, provide an audit trail and demonstrates accountability, in line with NMC guidelines and employer policies.
Work within the clinical governance framework to ensure that governance is embedded in clinical practice.
Monitor the quality of care delivery and record keeping, ensuring wherever possible that it is evidence based.
Report any concerns regarding professional practice to the supervisor or an appropriate other.
Participate in investigation, problem solving and remedial action where necessary.
Work within guidelines to identify and manage risk utilising expertise within or outside the organisation when needed.
Ensure compliance with health and safety requirements with particular attention to lone worker and manual handling policies.
Challenging Elements of the Role
Recruiting, engaging and retaining families on the FNP programme and following programme requirements.
Effectively managing the emotional intensity of the therapeutic relationship between the practitioner and client.
Working within complex family circumstances, including situations of safeguarding children.
Being able to learn and assimilate a large volume of highly complex new information in a very short space of time and having the necessary skills to quickly apply new knowledge and skills to the practical work environment.
Maintain the interest and enthusiasm of the recruited families on the FNP Programme over a two and a half year period.
Working with a structured programme whilst adapting to the requirements of each individual client and visit.
