• last year
We spoke to parents and nurses celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Family Nurse Partnership at the Botanic Gardens in Inverness.
Transcript
00:00 I'm Jane Park, I am the Child Health Lead as part of Health and Social Care.
00:05 We're here because it's the 10th anniversary for the Family Nurse Partnership in Highland.
00:11 Can you tell me a bit more about the Family Nurse Partnership and what it entails?
00:17 What support is given to families?
00:19 The Family Nurse Partnership has been around for 10 or 12 years in Scotland.
00:24 It only has been with us for 10 years but what we aim to do is really support first time parents in Highland
00:33 with a really intensive family support.
00:36 So for those who need it, it's for first time parents in Highland under the age of 20.
00:42 And for those that have experienced care, so young people who are having a family
00:47 and have experienced care of one description, the age limit is up to 25.
00:53 So it's for intensive family support.
00:55 How do you access the service? How do you get involved?
01:00 How do you get into it? Families can access the service usually through their midwife.
01:06 So the midwifery services will get in contact with the health visitor and with the Family Nurse Partnership team
01:14 and they'll have a conversation with the family and see is this something that you think would be appropriate for you.
01:22 Brilliant. And we have about 30 families today but there's a lot more that are getting help just now.
01:29 There are. There are about 80 families, 80 to 100 families at the moment who are getting help
01:35 and there are about 30 or 40 families with us today and there have been hundreds of families over the 10 years.
01:41 So our wee babies that were born 10 years ago are now in Primary 6, just about to go into Primary 7 and high school.
01:51 Must be quite exciting and really fulfilling to see that.
01:55 Really exciting. So that's something that the family nurses might follow up on because that's a real milestone for these wee ones
02:02 moving on into secondary school and their family lives have moved on since then.
02:06 And they may well have had other children who may not have been supported through the Family Nurse Partnership
02:12 because it's for that first new parent who's bought.
02:17 But these families may well have gone on to have lots more children.
02:21 I'm wondering, especially now, it's quite a tough moment for families, especially I'm thinking young people trying to find a house around here
02:29 and it's just like being a young person in general is difficult, in general difficult, but being a young person
02:36 and having now to deal with a birth, a new member of the family coming in, so it's a lot to think about.
02:43 So how much does it help in a context which is quite challenging like the one that we're living in now?
02:49 I think that's a really good question because the pressures have always been there for young parents.
02:54 So they've always been slightly different for young parents.
02:58 It's always been tough for them, but never no more as tough as it is in a post-pandemic crisis of living context than it is right now.
03:09 There is difficulty with employment, there's difficulty with housing, there's difficulty around poverty
03:15 and these things are all really hitting the families across the whole of Highland particularly hard.
03:23 So the Family Nurse Partnership, because it's an intensive support, there are many, many more connects with the family nurses and the family than there are routinely.
03:34 As part of a regular health visiting service, generally families get a certain amount of support,
03:40 but for families involved with the Family Nurse Partnership, there are a lot more supports available to them.
03:48 And really that partnership is about the families indicating to the nurse, here's what I'm needing, how can you help me in this?
03:56 It's about looking at what is really positive in the families lives.
04:00 We spoke about hope and courage and faith earlier on and one of the things about the Family Nurse Partnership is
04:06 it's about looking at the real strengths in the families, despite the fact that unemployment might be there,
04:13 that there might be housing problems, there might be extended family problems,
04:17 but actually as parents they have those real strengths, families, and I think you can see that today,
04:23 in the smallest babies, that parents and the families as a whole have real strengths in them.
04:28 And that's one of the things that's central to the Family Nurse Partnership,
04:31 it's nurturing the strengths of the families that we support.
04:35 So can I ask you your names and your experience with the Family Nurse Partnership?
04:45 I'm Niamh.
04:47 I'm Adam.
04:48 I've had a very good experience, very helpful.
04:52 Can you tell me a bit more about how that has helped you as a family?
04:56 How has it helped us as a family?
05:01 A lot of them have just kind of helped us through sort of different stages with our baby,
05:05 which we wouldn't have really known, like with the progressions and stuff like that.
05:10 Oh yeah, the progressions have been a big help.
05:13 Yeah, so they're kind of telling us what stages we've been going through at certain ages,
05:18 which we wouldn't have known anything about.
05:20 How to deal with the new baby coming in, apart from the families.
05:24 And in terms of you saying that there's support at home for your own mental health and health and health checks as well,
05:32 so maybe practical, can I ask a bit more what the support has been since when you don't sign up?
05:39 It's not monthly, I can't remember how often it is, but they do charts of how you're feeling with anxiety and anything like that.
05:48 So they keep an eye on how you're feeling as well as the baby.
05:52 And has it maybe allowed you to sort of go on with your daily life in a more serene way, just more family,
06:03 just busy because of course you have early preschool, but yeah,
06:09 have it helped you in terms of being able to manage your daily life better?
06:13 Definitely, it's helped me not be as anxious taking the kids out and stuff, so they're not happier that I'm not going to work.
06:25 Brilliant, and you were saying that you've been part of it for about two years now, right?
06:29 Yeah, two years, just over two years.
06:32 Brilliant. Was it before or after she was born?
06:34 Before.
06:35 Okay, so what?
06:36 About six months before she was born, it started to get to that.
06:41 Got her lost when I was riding, so yeah, that's been going on.
06:47 So you're two of the nurses that are supporting the families.
06:52 Can I ask you maybe your names and how long have you been part of the programme for?
06:56 So my name's Hayley and I've worked with Family Nurse Partnership since 2019.
07:02 And my name's Beth and I've worked with Family Nurse Partnership since 2017.
07:06 Amazing. Can I ask you what's your experience about working with the family and how much that has helped the families that you've worked with?
07:15 Experience has been varied. I've worked across Lothian and in Highland, and helping the families is a real privilege.
07:27 We get to visit them regularly throughout pregnancy and up until their babies are two.
07:33 And we help them with a wide variety of struggles that they might have, supporting them to build on their strengths.
07:41 And just what Beth said, I think we're a strengths-based programme, so for some families there might seem to be lots of different challenges.
07:51 And we are really good at being able to go in there and pick out the strengths that the clients already have and build on them.
07:59 And that usually can help them with all other aspects of their life as well.
08:03 And I think what we find really rewarding is seeing when we meet the clients for the first time,
08:09 they can be really apprehensive, really lacking in confidence, and working alongside them.
08:14 We see that confidence building, and ultimately we want them to be independent, confident parents.
08:21 And it's really lovely when we get them to graduation that we can see that change in them.
08:26 And it just, yes, that's one of the reasons why we do the job that we do.
08:31 Amazing. How important is it to have that one-to-one support, especially I'm thinking for a young person going through their first pregnancy?
08:40 I think it's massively important, especially as we're working with younger parents.
08:46 They've got so many challenges in their life, and becoming parents for the first time is such a huge transition to make.
08:55 Having one-to-one support really helps to build a relationship that fosters confidence for them.
09:04 We get to know us really well, and we get to know them really well, which makes the work we do easier.
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