Haringey Health Visiting (HV) supports families with pre-school children. Health visitors advise on many areas, including feeding, bonding, attachment, baby brain development, home safety and child development. They provide comprehensive care to families with children at risk or those subject to a Child Protection Plan (CPP). The team includes community nursery nurses and community staff nurses who focus on child development, as well as specialist infant feeding advisors.

A trained HENRY facilitator within the team delivers the HENRY programme, which supports healthier, happier lifestyles and helps family meals and routines run smoother.

The service is also commissioned to deliver Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home Visiting (MECSH), a structured programme offered to families at risk of poorer maternal/child health and development outcomes. Parents and carers can be enrolled antenatally or until the baby is eight weeks old.

The service can refer to the Parent Infant Psychology Service (PIPS), which works with parents and carers of children under two to promote positive parent-infant relationships and support emotional wellbeing. HV also works with and refers to other services, including the Haringey Breastfeeding Network, Community Therapies teams and Haringey Children's Services.

GP liaison

Each GP practice in Haringey has a link health visitor from within their local HV team. 

A virtual liaison meeting is held twice a quarter at a mutually agreed time. Prior to the meeting, the HV team sends the GP a pro forma including updates for all children registered with that practice subject to a CPP and any other families with concerns that need to be discussed with the GP. The practice also provides updates for these children and discusses any other concerns they have with the link health visitor. 

GPs inform the HV team of newly registered under-fives within their practice. GP liaison is a two-way process and does not replace individual GPs and health visitors discussing concerns with families on an ad hoc basis.  

Healthy Child Programme

HV teams offer five universal mandated contacts to all families in Haringey:

• an antenatal contact between 28 and 36 weeks of pregnancy
• a new birth visit between 10 and 14 days after the baby is born
• a health contact between six to eight weeks to assess parental and baby's health
• a health and development review between 12 and 15 months
• a health and development review between 24 and 30 months.

Health visitors are based in health centre teams. For full details, see Locations.

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusions

• all pre-school aged children living in Haringey and antenatal clients from 28 weeks gestation.

How to Refer

Locations

Hornsey Central Health Visiting Team (West Haringey)

Stuart Crescent Health Visiting Team (West Haringey)

The Laurels Health Visiting Team (East Haringey)

Tynemouth Road Health Visiting Team (East Haringey)