RE: Child health

[Guest guest]

I have been working with some HVs in West Herts who have stopped

undertaking routine developmental checks at 21 and 36 months. All parents

are sent a parents questionnaire and offered an opportunity to see a HV and

all children who are considered at risk under a range of criteria are

invited for a developmental check. This has given rise to a certain amount

of discussion about universalism vs stigmatism and the worry of 'missing'

a problem. However, they have undertaken an audit and evaluation of the

approach and through random checks of the questionnaire group have not

identified any major missed problems. Moreover, most parents like the

opportunity to decide for themselves and the HVs have found there is a

lower incidence of DNAs and they have freed up some time to undertake a

wider public health role with the elderly. We are in the process of writing

this yp for Community Practitioner.

Is this the sort of thing you are interested in?

Best wishes

Sally Kendall

Sally Kendall, Professor of Nursing

Faculty of Health and Human Sciences

University of Hertfordshire

College Lane

Hatfield

Herts. AL10 9AB

Tel: +44 01707 286380

[Guest guest]

This is interesting, we are currently working with the Health Authority to

review child surveillance county wide in Somerset. We are thinking of seeing

all children at around 8/12 and 2.25-2.5 years to push the importance of good

nutrition as well as 'review their progress' then not see them again, as school

entry will provide them with routine hearing and vision assessment. But seeing

all children at these ages will allow us to address nutrition, parental

issues/depression etc. parental expectation etc. etc. etc. We felt a

questionnaire would not allow us the opportunity to pick up health promotion and

child protection issues so I will be interested to read the write-up from Herts,

as I'm sure you had the same reservations initially. X

ena

>>> s.kendall@... 10/15/01 09:52am >>>

I have been working with some HVs in West Herts who have stopped

undertaking routine developmental checks at 21 and 36 months. All parents

are sent a parents questionnaire and offered an opportunity to see a HV and

all children who are considered at risk under a range of criteria are

invited for a developmental check. This has given rise to a certain amount

of discussion about universalism vs stigmatism and the worry of 'missing'

a problem. However, they have undertaken an audit and evaluation of the

approach and through random checks of the questionnaire group have not

identified any major missed problems. Moreover, most parents like the

opportunity to decide for themselves and the HVs have found there is a

lower incidence of DNAs and they have freed up some time to undertake a

wider public health role with the elderly. We are in the process of writing

this yp for Community Practitioner.

Is this the sort of thing you are interested in?

Best wishes

Sally Kendall

Sally Kendall, Professor of Nursing

Faculty of Health and Human Sciences

University of Hertfordshire

College Lane

Hatfield

Herts. AL10 9AB

Tel: +44 01707 286380