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Family Nursing & Home Care (FNHC) provides a comprehensive Health Visiting service to the Jersey community. The Health Visiting Service includes the Baby Steps Programme, UNICEF Baby Friendly initiative and Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home Visiting service (MECSH). The FNHC Health Visiting Service is available to all parents and families in Jersey during pregnancy until children reach school age, at which point our School Nursing service is available.

FNHC Health Visitors provide expert support to all islanders. All Health Visitors are qualified, professional nurses or midwives with specialist community public health nurse qualifications. The service is led by a qualified Health Visitor and includes highly trained Community Staff Nurses and Community Nursery Nurses. We have the courage to do things differently and strive to provide innovation and new levels of care to the community.

The Health Visiting Team works with a number of government departments such as health, education, children’s services, plus the charity sector and the Children’s Commissioner to support the delivery of the islands Children’s Plan. Our Health Visitors conduct review health assessments for Children Looked After, in line with national practice. FNHC’s services for children are all regulated and inspected by the Jersey Care Commission.

Our experts deliver the Healthy Child Programme. This evidenced based programme is offered to parents of children under school age and is provided in the home or in a community setting. We focus on prevention, providing families with screening, immunisations and health and development reviews.

Our experts offer the best possible health, wellbeing and parenting advice.

The Healthy Child Programme focuses on a number of areas including:

  • Supporting the transition to parenthood
  • Supporting maternal and paternal family health
  • Supporting breastfeeding
  • Supporting healthy baby weight and nutrition
  • Improving health, wellbeing and child development
  • Understanding common childhood illnesses and infections
  • Supporting language development and providing early learning guidance
  • Understanding safety and accident prevention
  • Understanding behavioural difficulties including sleeping, eating, potty training and temper tantrums

As part of the Healthy Child Programme, the Health visiting service will contact you:

  • Before you have your baby
  • Ten to fourteen days after the birth of your baby
  • Six to Eight weeks after birth
  • When your baby is four months old (to focus on introducing solid food)
  • When your baby is twelve months old (for a development review)
  • When your child is two years old (for a further development review)

These regular points of contact help us understand where you might need additional support or advice from other FNHC or health providers which may include our MECSH programme.

When you need us, we will be there.

 

Important Information:

If your child is unwell, you must call your GP for advice, or dial 999 in an emergency or go to the Emergency Department at the Hospital with your child.

We run a number of child health clinics at various locations:

St Pauls Centre, St Helier DROP IN

Mondays 9:30am - 11:00am, Wednesdays 2pm - 4pm

Samares Pathways Child & Family Centre, St Clement DROP IN

Thursdays 9:30am - 11:00am

Communicare, St Brelade DROP IN

Fridays 1:30pm - 3:00pm

Breastfeeding Buddies BY APPOINTMENT ONLY To book call 01534 497698

Mondays 9.30-11am St Paul’s Centre Wednesdays 11.30am -1pm Pip’s Place St Helier Fridays 1.30pm - 3:00pm Communicare St Brelade

Video

Health Visitors Are 'Royally' Important

The Princess of Wales, Catherine Middleton recently met health visitors taking part in a new field study, funded by The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood. Her Royal Highness commented on the importance of health visitors and their role in the early life of children and the support they give parents.

Useful Links

Healthy Child Programme

Institute Of Heath Visitors

Healthy Start Jersey Fresh Fruit & Vegetables Voucher Scheme

Healthy Start scheme in Jersey offers vouchers for fresh fruit and vegetables to the following individuals:  Pregnant women who are on income support (each woman needs to apply through the online form available on Pregnancy and Birth gov.je webpage: Healthy Start Scheme: food vouchers for pregnant women Pregnant women can apply for the scheme at any point during their pregnancy and should be aware of this support in case their financial situation changes. If a pregnant woman with less than 5 years of residency is recognised as living in need but is not eligible for the scheme during pregnancy (as she is not on income support), her child could become eligible for this support as soon as they are born, based on the professional judgment of the Health Visitor. This would need to be highlighted to the assigned Health Visitor, who can then issue the scheme for the child in this family. Parents with children aged 0-4 years who are on income support (this is issued automatically for families by Employment Social Security and Housing (old CLS) as soon as a child is born and registered)  Non-residential parents with children aged 0-4 years who have been on the island for less than 5 years and are identified by Health Visitors based on their professional judgment as living in need Inclusion criteria In order to onboard a family with less than 5 years residency to the Healthy Start scheme, Family Nursing & Home Care (FNHC) have a process to establish the following through their usual screening process: - family is categorised as living in need, in according with a Health Visitors professional judgement - family has not been resident in Jersey for 5 years (as stated by the family) and therefore is not eligible to receive income support or Healthy Start vouchers through Employment Social Security and Housing (old CLS).

Get In Touch

Contact A Health Visitor

The Health Visiting Service operates on a duty model which provides a single point of contact for anyone who wishes to speak to a Health Visitor. Call us on (01534) 497640 or complete the form and we will get back to you.

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Stage 3 UNICEF Baby Friendly Accreditation

The UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK) Baby Friendly Initiative works with UK and Channel Islands public services to protect, promote and support breastfeeding and to strengthen mother-baby and family relationships.

Family Nursing & Home Care (FNHC) are delighted to announce that they have recently been awarded Stage 3 UNICEF Baby Friendly accreditation (January 2025). This means that FNHC is now fully accredited as Baby Friendly. 

For the health visiting team and Baby Steps, Stage 3 assessment involves assessing that mothers are supported with their feeding, given useful and accurate information and that parents are supported to recognise the importance of relationships and how to build these.

Throughout the process, regular audit of staff knowledge, practical skills and parental experience was undertaken to ensure compliance with the standards. In addition, environmental audits were undertaken to ensure clinical areas were welcoming, comfortable, providing appropriate information free of advertising of Breastmilk Substitutes.

The initial accreditation typically lasts for two years; after this, re-assessments will take place on a regular basis to ensure that the standards are being maintained and to explore how the service is building upon the good work it has already done. At this time we will be able to apply for Achieving Sustainability assessment, leading to the Gold Award. 

 

 

 

 

 

Children, Young People & Family Services

Child Accident Prevention (CAP)

Children’s Community Nursing

School Nurses

Baby Steps

Children, Young People & Families

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