For Professionals

As a universal, professional service we have a duty of care to all children and young people we meet. If we have any concerns about a child’s welfare we will discuss this directly with the designated safeguarding lead in school and follow our local pathway for sharing information with other local health, wellbeing services and social care services.

 

The School Nursing team will be invited to be part of child protection (CP) and child in need (CIN) procedures as a public health practitioner, therefore we may need to visit with children and young people in schools to complete a health review. Where there is a primary healthcare practitioner, we will ask professionals to liaise with them directly to ensure all current health needs are co-ordinated and managed for the best needs of the child.

 

All referrals for children and young people on a CP or CIN plan will need to be discussed by the allocated social worker with the named School Nurse, to ensure the School Nurse can review the plan and concerns prior to deciding on appropriate school nursing actions.

 

At times the School Nurse may also be asked to see children who have been identified at requiring early help. The allied professional who identifies need will complete a referral form and discuss this with the parents prior to us seeing them.

The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) is a mandated public health programme delivered by the School Nursing team in Reception and Year 6.

 

It is part of the governments approach to understanding and tackling childhood obesity. In addition the data can be used by local programmes to identify schools who may benefit from a whole school approach to maintaining an active lifestyle.

 

In Reception year, children in Barnet will also have their hearing and vision checked as part of our early detection strategy aimed at supporting parents to access services to enhance children’s learning and social development.

The School Nursing team provides health and wellbeing questionnaires for all students in Reception, Year 6, Year 9 and Year 11. These questionnaires provide; parents, children and young people the opportunity to share any health needs with the School Nursing team and gain support for those health needs.

 

Questionnaires will be offered electronically to all students in Barnet schools. An anonymised report will be shared with each school and the Barnet public health team to support the development of future services.

The relationships and sex education aspects of PSHE education will be compulsory in all schools from 2020.

Currently the Barnet school nursing team can offer each secondary school health related sessions based on their current need, in line with our 6 high impact areas. In addition we aim to build our primary school PHSE provision based on identified need from the responses of the parent and child health questionnaires. We work closely with the School Health & Wellbeing Project Officer to co-ordinate health education sessions across Barnet.

 

Schools should contact their named School Nurse to discuss topics and delivery dates.

Children and young people should not be excluded or discriminated against because of a medical condition.

 

The Barnet School Nursing team can help to support schools who may have questions about supporting children and young people in school with medical needs.

 

We provide school awareness sessions for; severe allergic reaction, asthma, epilepsy and type 2 diabetes. In addition we offer additional training sessions for staff in schools who have children with prescribed buccolam medication for epilepsy.

 

These sessions are delivered at the Barnet office and can be booked via email or telephone throughout the year. Invitations and awareness session dates will be sent to all schools at the start of each academic year.

 

** For children who attend school in another borough or attend a specialist school, we will signpost you to the local team. These teams will have the most current health information and have the opportunity to make contact with the child in school.