The iHV collaborate with a range of partner's to deliver projects that support our mission to improve child and family health and reduce health inequalities through a strengthened health visiting service. Our work aims to generate new evidence and translate this into practice – using it to develop bespoke training and resources specifically for health visitors and their teams, to support their work with families across a range of important public health priority areas.
All projects follow the PRINCE2 Project Management Principles. Co-production is at the heart of our work as we aim to work in partnership with health visitors and families to shape the projects, resources and training.
If you would like more information on any project, have ideas for new projects, or have any questions, please contact the iHV Projects Team at projects@ihv.org.uk.
Below you will find different projects that we lead on.
Funded by The Health Foundation, in partnership with Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust (SHFT).
The project sought to explore the use of data and current analytical capability in health visiting practice in Hampshire. It aimed to inform a test and learn development project to support health visiting services within SHFT to ‘move beyond bean counting’ and make better use of data. The project specifically focused on the use of routinely collected data from a range of sources to improve the identification of children with risk and vulnerability factors who are currently ‘hidden’ (i.e., they are known to services but are not receiving the support they need, as information is not utilised effectively, or is lost in current electronic records).
Through co-design with SHFT health visiting staff, a new health visitor Digital Lead post was developed along with a prototype data visualisation tool to collate key data and support clinical decision making in health visitor practice.
To understand more about how this was achieved please read the “how to guide” which was developed to disseminate the learning to other health visiting services with key considerations to improve data use and analytical capability in health visiting.
📖 A Practical Guide to Engaging Health Visiting Services in Improving Analytical Capability
The project was delivered over in 2 stages, the original project funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing and the factographic project was funded by NHS England in 2022.
The Burdett Trust for Nursing project sort to understand the needs of autism in the early years. It gathered insights from experts, health visitors, families and those with lived experience to understand what autism in babies and children looks like pre, during and post diagnosis and what support families need.
Following this an Ambassador Changing Conversations training programme was developed, along with a variety of resources to support practice.
📖 Burdett Autism End of Project Report (May 2021)
📖 Insights report - Changing Conversations (Dec 2020)
If you are interested in this training programme, you can find out more here.
The factographic built on this project, to create a simple resource about autism in the early years, aimed at professionals and parents. Through co-design with professionals, parents, families, and those with lived experience, we produced an interactive resource which supports the understanding of autism in very young children and babies, and what support families may need before diagnosis.
There are 4 sections to the factographic:
- Working with families – insights from those with lived experience, about what life is like with autism, and before diagnosis.
- Key facts – background facts and signs of autism and dispels some common myths.
- Communication –information about the different ways autistic people may communicate, tools that can support communication development.
- Support for you – highlighting various organisations that support families and professionals with different aspects of autism.
See the factographic here.
This project built on the work of the Changing Conversations Autism project and was also funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing.
It aimed to raise awareness of behaviour as a form of communication as well as awareness of the practical and ethical issues of restrictive and restraining practices in the early years. It developed resources and health visitor training to promote the importance of respectful, positive behavioural support strategies that safeguard the rights of young children with disabilities.
As part of the resources an impactful and emotive animation was created using parent stories to illustrate what restrictive practices look like in the early years and how it can affect babies, children and families. Other resources include GPPs, PTs and an A-Z of useful organisations.
🎥 Restrictive Practice Animation
📖 End of project report - Understanding Behaviour and Changing Conversations: Understanding Behaviour (June 2021)
📖 Burdett Autism End of Project Report (May 2021)
📖 Insights report - Changing Conversations (Dec 2020)
The training has now been incorporated with the Changing Conversations Autism training to create a full-days training for health visitors and their teams. If you are interested in this training programme, you can find out more here.