Joanne Mitchell – Specialist Community Public Health Nurse
I qualified as a Specialist Community Public Health Nurse two years ago, but I’ve been employed by the Trust for the last eight years. Working within the Integrated Family Health Service has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my thirty-year nursing career. Supporting children, young people and their families to achieve better outcomes in life is a real privilege.
All NHS services face challenges but the school nursing team in Derby City have a genuine positive team working ethos which I personally have found invaluable. Staff show real compassion towards the children and young people they support but they are equally compassionate towards their colleagues. The Trust is a great place to work for many reasons but anyone wishing to progress a career within school nursing, this supportive team working ethos within the Integrated Family Health Team is quite special.
Louise Malkin - Health Visitor - Derby Integrated Family Health Service
Hi, I’m Louise and I am a Health Visitor within Derby City. I qualified as a Health Visitor last year, and made the decision to come work for DHCFT 6 months ago.
I wanted to work with Team Derbyshire after hearing about the extensive support and additional training I would receive being newly qualified. Since starting I have had monthly 1:1 preceptorship meetings, and group preceptorship sessions, as well as ongoing support and meetings from the management team. The health visiting team have a great relationship with other services within Derby which helps us to support children and their families, which compared to other NHS trusts I have worked for, is very refreshing. I have already been given many opportunities to help with my professional development, and continue to do so with the aim of developing extra skills to progress through the trust.
Taking the step to work for Team Derbyshire has been the best decision I have made, not only for my career, but outside of work, family and friends can see how much I enjoy being a Health Visitor within this trust.
Maria Moore - Specialist Community Public Health Nurse for Asylum seeking families
I joined the Trust approximately 10 years ago as a Community Staff Nurse in Children’s services, this was a vast change for me as I had always worked in acute oncology before briefly doing some district nursing.
I was in the process of completing my mentoring in practice module which the team’s Practice Teacher supported me with, there was no rush for me to be independent in practice and worked within a skill mix to develop my knowledge and gain confidence. As a community Staff Nurses, Health Visitors and our team of Family Health Practitioners we deliver the governments “Healthy Child Programme”. We are probably the few nurses who work with a relatively healthy population to try and prevent ill health from the onset. We work alongside multi agency colleagues which include Speech and language therapists, Paediatricians, Social care colleagues, Children’s Centre workers and numerous charities to deliver joined up care to our families.
Within twelve months of my employment with DFCFT I was hooked, I was encouraged to apply for additional training and successful in being guided though further academic study to complete the 12 months module of Specialist Community Public Health Nursing (Health Visiting) and further training opportunity for a field conversion to School Nursing.
Currently I specialise in families with young children who are seeking asylum and offer an enhanced service to our families, we have a dynamic team who are very passionate about what we do and will always go above and beyond to meet our family’s needs. We acknowledge team working is very important for effective communication and for achieving results. We value what each individual brings to the team, their knowledge, humour and expertise.
I have worked in most of the teams in Derby city now and have found them all to be supportive with regular peer supervision, clinical supervision and have found I can speak to any of the managers or safeguarding nurses at any time for guidance. Lone working certainly does not mean you are without guidance and support.
The best bit of working for DHCFT and I am not going to lie, is the personal touches from out chief Executive Ifti and the surprise gifts which appear through your letterbox as tokens of appreciation.
