Calling for more Health Visitors!

The Family and Parenting Institute http://www.familyandparenting.org/ have a campaign on increasing the number of health visitors. There is plenty of research to support this need - we just need it to happen.

See their campaign at http://www.familyandparenting.org/healthVisitors

Parents love health visitors. They give a uniquely valuable service that cannot be found elsewhere, parents trust their advice and turn to them easily when they are anxious or concerned about their new child.

In March 2007 YouGov carried out a poll for us which shows that 76 per cent of parents in England want parenting support and advice on their child's health and development from a trained health visitor with up-to-date knowledge.

83 per cent of parents want that support and advice in the home. But we have also surveyed Primary Care Trusts and found that how often or even whether parents get visitors from a health visitor is a post code lottery while health visitor numbers overall are in freefall.

The Family and Parenting Institute believes that health visitors are the key to effective early intervention. We have been campaigning since 2007 to raise the voice of parents in the debate about the future of health visiting, to protect the future of our unique health visiting service by securing a well funded, well trained universal health visitor network accessible to all parents of children under five with additional help for those who need it most.

In our report, Health Visitors - an endangered speciess, we argue for a well-funded, well-trained universal health visitor service available to all parents of children under five, with specialist support for the most vulnerable families.

There is a specific article on postnatal depression.
http://www.familyandparenting.org/Filestore//Documents/factsheets/Health_Visitors_Post_natal_depression.pdf

I fully support their campaign!

Elaine

www.hanzak.com