Child Health Screener- School Health

Job description

Job responsibilities

The school health service will contribute to the London Borough of Newham (LBN) key priorities set out in the corporate plan for children, young people and families and in accordance United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child1.

The post holder will be a member of the School Health Team and work as part of the wider Child Health Information service (CHIS) team.

The post holder will work in conjunction with the Child Health Practitioners (CHP) within the school health service. They will contribute to the assessment of health needs and delivery of appropriate services to meet needs of both the individual and the wider Community within a defined area of the London Borough of Newham.

The post holder will undertake duties as delegated by the School Nurse, Child Health Practitioners, Public Health Programme Lead and other nursery nurses in the team. The Child Health Screener will support the delivery of the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) (Reception and Year 6 cohorts) and the Hearing and Vision Screening Programme (Reception cohort) across all primary schools in LBN and to children who attend alternative provisions.

The post holder works as part of the LBN public health nursing team, liaising and working with statutory and voluntary agencies to promote the health and wellbeing of the local population as delegated.

The post holder will assist and support the children and young peoples public health workforce (0-19) to carry out their duties around health screening, support around a specific health concern including safe guarding, uptake of routine immunisations, including school aged immunisations and the seasonal Nasal Flu programme.

The post holder will be required to undertake the key functions within CHIS Team including liaison with local and national maternity and child health departments to enable smooth exchange of patient identifiable clinical data and information on a daily basis to facilitate clinical service delivery to local children and families living in Newham, as delegated.

The post holder will be involved in data collection and inputting which contributes to identifying local health needs across the 0-19 years health services across the London Borough of Newham

The post holder reports to the Child Health Practitioner and is supervised by the Public Health Programme Lead Health

The post holder has no budget responsibility

The post holder will be required to adhere to this dress code of smart but casual.

The NCMP is a mandated annual programme delivered by all local authorities which involves taking the height and weight of all children in reception and year 6 cohorts. Vision screening is delivered in line with National Screening Committee recommendations and aims to identify children aged 4 to 5 years with reduced vision and amblyopia enabling timely intervention (PHE, 2018). Screening reception aged childrens hearing aims to identify any hearing problems that may have been missed or have slowly been getting worse since the newborn screen (NHS, 2018).

Amblyopia is a form of abnormal vision system development. Early detection of amblyopia is necessary to avoid permanent visual impairment by allowing treatment to be undertaken within the sensitive time period of growth and change in the visual system.

The School Health Screener should have a minimum of 2 years experience of working with children of all ages and an interest in Public Health. The post holder will be expected to act within their scope of practice, level of training and competence and be aware of their limitations at all time. They will work across the four integrated locality hubs providing a screening service to all eligible children supporting the child health practitioner role. Strengthening the delivery of the universal 4, 5, 6, service model evidenced by the Healthy Child Programme and Health for All Children 5th Edition.

Person Specification

Essential Skills and Knowledge

Essential

• - Strong clinical leadership skills.
• - Excellent communication, interpersonal, and report-writing abilities.
• - Knowledge of child development issues which can impact school aged children.
• - Competence in using clinical and administrative IT systems.
• - Understanding and commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion principles.

Other Requirements

Essential

• - Ability to travel independently within the borough.
• - A positive, resilient, and flexible attitude towards change and service improvement.

Experience

Essential

• - Significant post-registration experience working with children, young people, and families.
• - Working knowledge of safeguarding procedures and multi-agency collaboration.

Qualifications

Essential

• -The applicant must have a minimum of a NVQ level 2/3 or equivalent, and have Math and English GCSE C or equivalent foundation skills.
• -Childhood Studies Level 2

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.

Employer details

Employer name

London Borough of Newham

Address

Building 1000, Newham Dockside

1000 Dockside Road

London

E16 2QU

Employer's website

https://www.newham.gov.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)