Valuing professional judgement in health visiting
Abstract
Current health and social care policy highlights the importance of accurately identifying children in need and the needs of their families. This paper reports on one aspect of a study undertaken to examine health visitors' use of professional judgements and formal guidelines for identifying families requiring extra health visiting support.
The paper focuses specifically on health visitors' use of professional judgement in the assessment of family health need. A case-study strategy informed by a constructivist methodology was adopted to examine health visiting practice across three study sites. The focus of interest was to attempt to understand the factors that may influence a health visitor in making a judgement to offer a family extra support. Data collection took place during 56 visits to families receiving increased health visiting support and intervention. Following these home visits separate in-depth interviews were undertaken with health visitors and clients.
A key feature of the analysis was the fact that even when guidelines exist, in reality most health visitors use their own professional judgement in making family assessments. It is hoped that the paper will contribute to the knowledge base of health visiting by attempting to unpack some of the elements of professional judgement and consider its value in health visiting practice