Health visitors work with families receiving additional support V1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An exploration of how health visitors work with vulnerable clients using conversation analysis.
IRAS ID
177123
Contact name
Anne Patterson
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 1 months, 17 days
Research summary
Title: An exploration of how health visitors work with vulnerable clients using conversation analysis.
While health visitors continue to offer a universal service to all families with pre-school children, a significant proportion of their time is spent working with families who have additional vulnerabilities. The Healthy Child Programme (Shribman & Billingham, 2009) recommends a universal programme with increased focus on vulnerable children and families in order to prevent future health and social issues. It is emphasised that this should be achieved through working in partnership with families. Yet very little is known about how health visitors are doing this. It is frequently assumed that this is the same as for families receiving universal services. It cannot however, be assumed that this is the same. Given the emphasis on early intervention and improving the health of the population it is necessary to explore how health visitors are working with vulnerable families.
The study will recruit health visitor: client pairs from a social enterprise providing NHS services in an urban area. In order to recruit clients with vulnerabilities health visitors will identify clients on their Universal Partnership Plus and/or Safeguarding caseloads. Health visitors will be accompanied on a home visit to recruited clients and the consultation will be audio recorded. These audio recordings will be analysed using the principles of conversation analysis, in order to identify how the interaction is negotiated.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EM/0226
Date of REC Opinion
26 Jun 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion