Community nurses' child protection role: views of public health nurses in Ireland

Headnote

Abstract

Public hearth nurses in Ireland are generalist practitioners with a wide range of roles that address the needs of clients in the community across their lifespan. Child protection is one of many of the roles of Irish public hearth nurses. However, with increasing caseloads, birth rates and aging populations, their child protection role is becoming more difficult to define and practise safely.

This paper presents a key finding of a qualitative study that explored the views of a group of public health nurses (n=10) regarding their role with pre-school children.

A significant theme following analysis of the interviews were the nurses' expressed concerns on their role in child protection. There is a need to define the role practised by public hearth nurses in child protection and to achieve a standard for this nationally.

Key words

Child protection, pre-school children, public health nursing

Community Practitioner, 2011; 84(11): 33-6.

No potential competing interests declared.

Introduction and background

In Ireland, the role of the public health nurse (PHN) is guided by the Department of Health and Children (DoHC, 2000) Circular 41, which states that the PHN provides antenatal and postnatal care to mothers, preschool child health, child protection, family support, home and community clinical nursing, care of the older person, care of vulnerable groups, and nursing care of intellectually and physically disabled persons. Recommended populations are approximately 2500 persons per PHN. However, in practice this number can vary from 650 to 6500, ie rural and island areas versus urban areas (Begley et al, 2004). This is further compounded by the recent increasing trends in births and the elderly population (Central Statistics Office, 2006). A migrating population of asylum-seekers to Ireland since 2000 and the aging population have dramatically increased PHNs' caseload and influenced the workload. Issues of concern for PHNs are a caseload that is too large (more than 2500 persons) to identify families at risk. Other issues are that the geographical area of practice is too large or that the role of the PHN is too broad and may need to be specialised (Begley et al, 2004; HSE, 2006).

The PHN has been identified as a key worker with children at risk in the community (DoHC, 2001a; Begley et al, 2004). It is widely documented...