Family Nurse

Job responsibilities

This is a demanding specialist role requiring high levels of professional skills and practice and the ability to work as part of, and across teams. As a Family Nurse there is an expectation that you will provide leadership expertise within your locality and within the wider Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Children & Young Peoples Health Services.

To recruit and engage eligible, hard-to-reach pregnant young women to the FNP programme.

To use the programme materials and methods in the clients homes in order to achieve the following:

• 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.

To participate in continuous monitoring and engagement in reflective supervision, to ensure that expertise in clinical methods are developed and maintained, that the service offered is of high quality and the programme 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 be part of a 0-19 team, working within a locality leadership team to support Cambridgeshire Children & Young Peoples Health Service delivery of the Healthy Child Programme to the highest possible standard.

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 solutions
• 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 FSP and taking lead professional role where required
• At all times keep the safety of the baby and 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 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 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 act as a credible role model in line with CCS objectives, approved policies, standards and quality assurance initiatives

ADMINISTRATIVE

• Provide timely and accurate data to monitor the programme fidelity and for research purposes
• Maintain own caseload files and have good keyboard skills
• Input FNP data into 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, supervision, training and expertise to colleagues and to team Quality Support Officer as required
• Mentor Young Parent Nursery Nurses to ensure the highest quality care is offered to young parents in Cambridgeshire

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 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 and preceptorship, mentorship with the team
• Support and facilitate the training and development of other team members who needs to improve service delivery

MOST CHALLENGING PART OF THE ROLE

• Recruiting, engaging and retaining families on the FNP programme and following programme requirements
• Effectively managing and 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 half a year period
• Working with a structured programme whilst adapting to the requirement of each individual client and visit

Qualifications & Training

Essential

• NMC registered
• Degree level or equivalent experience

Desirable

• Masters Level Qualification
• Qualified Family Nurse
• Specialist Community Public Health Nurse Qualification

Experience

Essential

• 2 years experience of working with families in deprived communities
• 2 years experience of midwifery, child health, public health, home visiting
• Experience of clinical supervision
• Experience of working with Young Parents
• Experience of safeguarding children

Desirable

• Experience of working with young people
• Experience of delivering training to small groups of health and allied professionals
• Experience of delivering group supervision
• Experience of delivering the Family Nurse Partnership Programme
• Knowledge of the research base of FNP
• Experience of delivering safeguarding supervision to others

Knowledge & Skills

Essential

• Understanding the difference between motivational approaches and advice giving
• Able to manage strong emotions, sensitive issues and undertake courageous conversations
• Able to develop supportive, trusting and respectful relationships
• Able to work effectively in a team, supporting and championing others and challenging colleagues' views and attitudes when necessary
• Able to sensitively provide anticipatory guidance to parents
• Able to manage exposure to distressing life events and stressful complex situations
• Highly reflective and able to learn from experiences
• Willingness to prepare for and engage in and lead on clinical and managerial supervision, team learning and role play sessions
• Able to assess a situation, set priorities and problem solve quickly and effectively
• Able to communicate clearly and succinctly both verbally and in writing with exceptional analytical skills and ability to write Voice of the child statements
• Exceptional communication, facilitative and motivating skills
• Ability to be strengths based, positive and resilient
• Able to work effectively with diverse groups
• Computer skills to create reports, use clinical systems, access email, read excel spreadsheets etc. Able to analyse numerical data
• Knowledge of up to date National and local Safeguarding policies

Desirable

• Able to evidence understanding of the theories underpinning FNP - Attachment theory, self-efficacy theory, human ecology theory,
• Demonstrate understanding of parent/infant mental health
• Experience of using motivational interviewing techniques
• Demonstrate understanding of complexities of behaviour change

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).