APGPF Activities 2005 - 2007:

The meeting welcomed the FPI health visitor survey and campaign – it has 'caught a feeling' and underlines how health visitors contribute to building social cohesion.

Main points raised include:

• A universal service encourages social cohesion. This highlights the importance of the provision of consistent advice from Health Visitors. This is especially significant as children are usually unlikely to be in regular contact with any other service. An ongoing relationship will be needed as disorders may emerge and develop over time.

• Health Visitors can play a valuable role in offering information on childcare. The FPI research found that many parents wanted Health Visitors to signpost or lead them to other services, but only half did this. This may be due to the fact that in the last five years there have been problems with the training for Health Visitors. Supervision is only 'recommended' not 'mandatory'.

• Health Visitors are a valuable resource both to Sure Start and GPs

• Focus on justifying the service by its long-term outcomes needs to be balanced by looking at the improvement to parents and children's quality of life at the current time.

• In Scotland nurses are being used to provide the service of Health Visitors. There is concern that nurses will be overstretched as they will be needed by people with chronic illnesses/conditions so will not be able to give the high standard of care currently offered by Health Visitors. Others were concerned that the nurse-family partnership pilots would be very demanding on resources, then less so when the scheme is rolled out. David Olds' research illustrated the need for proper implementation with trained nurses. The Health Visitors on the pilots will have caseloads of 25 mothers. If the pilots are run what would happen to the remaining 98% of mothers?

• The above point is made all the more significant by the fact that Health Visitors are there for the parents too, not just the child. As a result, they may deal with complex mental health work and may guide some parents to mental health services for further supervision and support.

• There is a need for more UK focused work as most of the research is based on America.

• Annette Brooke MP has proposed an Early Day Motion on the subject and Lord Northbourne has tabled parliamentary questions in the House of Lords.

Suggestions for parliamentary questions

The numbers of community nurses and assistants to distinguish health visitor numbers from a paraprofessional/diluted service?

Querying the evidence on targeted health visiting schemes, such as the nurse-family partnership pilots currently being trialled in 10 PCTs?

Whether the government have a commitment to maintaining a universal health visitor service into the 21st century taking into consideration that there are wide variations in health visitor numbers across England and that areas with less health visitors do not correlate to deprivation?

What measures the government intends to take to address the crisis in the health visitor service in London?

What is the Government's view of the role of health visitors in providing support for parents and families?

When Surestart was launched one of its targets was to reduce the incidence of low birth weight. To what extent has this been achieved?

Presentations at the seminar
Why campaign for health visitors  - Sally Gimson

Life chances before birth: promoting maternal
and infant health  - Dr Louise Bamfield

Experiences of postnatal support and Health Visitor care of UK born ethnic minority women  - Shuby Puthessary

More information about our campaign

FPI Health Visitor campaign

Urgent review of Ofcom's consultation on television advertising of food and drink products to children – joint meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Heart Disease and the Children's Food Bill coalition, supported by the all party groups for Diabetes, Stroke, Obesity, Parents & Families and Children.

NFPI advocated for improved family and parenting services and for policy changes to help address the challenges that families are facing.

The issues that were discussed included: Can the quality of relationships across the generations affect the quality of life in families? As the number of older people in the population grows over the next twenty-five years, what might it mean to be an older person and what might that mean for family policy? How might services respond to an increase in demand and what might expectations be in the future? The seminar will explored emerging trends for children, parents, grandparents, families and carers.

The main aim here was to highlight concerns so aim that the final Bill should not lead to unintended consequences by either limiting choice for families or excluding the poorest families that it aims to support.

Recent research carried out by the National Family and Parenting Institute investigated whether parents felt that companies targeted their children with too much marketing. Details of this research were published in the NFPI report Hard Sell, Soft Targets? The report details and analyses the results of a MORI poll which found that 84% of parents felt that companies targeted their children too much. Parents were particularly irritated at the massive growth and ubiquity of product tie-ins, often arising from TV programmes. Parents were dismayed at the way in which marketing encouraged spending, a throw away mentality and dissatisfaction. Parents felt under pressure to make certain purchases because of what their children had seen on television or in the shops. In the report, the NFPI made a host of recommendations.

NFPI Briefing and Research paper by Joan Hunt, being circulated to Parliamentarians on the Child Contact and Adoption Bill.

Seminar on relationships with Janet Walker and Penny Mansfield presentations. There were many queries raised, one of which were - Can the quality of relationships between adults affect the quality of life in families? New research has uncovered evidence that how families live their diverse everyday lives has a far-reaching influence on the well being of children and young people.

Joint meeting with All Party Parliamentary Group for Children
This meeting provided an opportunity for Parliamentarians, representatives of voluntary and statutory organisations, and academics to discuss how to support children and families with Carey Oppenheim, special adviser on children and families to Number 10. In particular the meeting discussed:

• How to target parents for interventions
• How key transitions affect families (e.g. children moving from primary to secondary school)?
• What works in helping children, parents and families?
• How do we join things together developmentally?
• How does the media affect family life and could the media do more to encourage parenting skills?
• The role of grandparents and the extended family in supporting families

Young carers from three different projects in England spoke about their experiences; issues that particularly affect them; and ideas on how to make their lives better. They were supported by three charities who have come together to issue a joint position statement on this issue: The Children's Society Young Carers' Initiative, the Disabled Parents' Network, the Princess Royal Trust for Carers.

Early Day Motion 539 tabled by Annette Brooke MP calls for a more preventative, whole-family approach to supporting young carers.

This meeting explored the importance of infants establishing warm, secure attachments with their caregivers, as secure attachments are associated with developmental benefits. Attachment theory was first espoused by John Bowlby in 1969, and an attachment relationship between an adult and an infant can be demonstrated by a physical closeness between the infant and adult, a sense of security for the infant so that they can explore the world, and feelings of anxiety in the infant when separated from the adult. The presentations also covered the neurological and biological evidence of the development of babies' brains that supports attachment theory. This is important in the current policy context with the recent publication of the ten-year childcare strategy, announcements for extended maternity and paternity leave, the importance of work-life balance, and the implementation of Every Child Matters.