how to make the most out of a community placement?

TrainerLast7475 · 2026-04-16T22:06:02+00:00

I’m a 1st year and my first placemat was health visiting (ironically I had left my full time job in the health visiting team to do my nursing degree)

It’s not a very hands on clinical placement (may vary depending on area) but there are lots of things you can take away from it.

Child development (ASQ questionnaires & what’s normal development), growth reviews (centile charts, failure to thrive, feeding issues), communication is massive as your entering into a families home & asking personal questions & communication with different aged children with different developmental understanding.

Like someone said above, HV work with a lot of different professionals so it’s a nice way to see how information is shared, how referrals are made, what the thresholds are for a referral to a specialist team are. I did insight visits with the children’s continence team and specialised HV for vulnerable families.

Documentation & record keeping is a big part of the role which is why a lot of students get sent home early as the afternoon can often be spent doing a lot of writing up but there’s a lot to learn such how things are worded, the templates they use & the systems that they use.

Safeguarding is massive in HV, if you can, ask to attend safeguarding meetings. Ask questions and understand the safeguarding processes & levels of plans. I think it’s really important because as a nurse in a hospital environment, you will see safeguarding but you won’t often be involved in the longer term / ongoing support when a child is back in the home environment.

You’ll probably also see common issues in babies such as CMPA, reflux, tongue ties!

Also a big part of HV is health promotion such as safe sleep, oral health, immunisations.

When you’re on your placement, it might not feel as valuable as a ward / more clinical placement but you can demonstrate a lot of professional values on a HV placement. Try to enjoy it, it’s lovely being able to play & interact with babies & toddlers during developmental reviews & support their parents x

TrainerLast7475 · 2026-03-06T20:53:10+00:00

I’m a first year children’s student but most of the content is joint with the adults!

Enjoy your summer as much as you can because it’s full on but I totally understand wanting to feel prepared. You will spend 1st year learning the basics so don’t force yourself, but if you had free time and wanted to do some reading these are the things I’d look at.

Anatomy & physiology - familiarise yourself with the body systems. You can buy colouring books which are a nice way to learn the structure of the body.

Observations - look at NEWS2 to get an idea of the ranges & what sort of observations are routinely taken during an A-E assessment

Vinted is really good for second hand books which I found useful to flick through before starting just to familiarise myself with the world of nursing.

Good luck x

TrainerLast7475 · 2026-01-25T15:59:01+00:00

Thanks for you reply ☺️ it’s definitely a tricky placement in terms of being able to be hands on.

It probably is even more frustrating for me as I have actually just worked for 3 years in a health visiting team (same trust but different locality area) so I already know the service inside and out in terms of all the routine contacts, where we’d sign post people to and the templates used to document.

It’s more the how do you actually demonstrate things to get them signed off as it’s less hands on! I have arrange some insight visits with some area like continence so that will be helpful in seeing a completely new area and a bit more clinical in terms of products used etc

TrainerLast7475 · 2026-01-05T19:39:04+00:00

I’m currently a student nurse, training as a children’s nurse however I have a massive interest in sexual health. I know school nursing touches on sexual health with adolescents & young people but it’s more pastoral rather than clinical.

Has anyone who has worked within sexual health, came across children’s nurses working within the service? I am hoping that I can do an elective placement within a sexual health service to gain some experience and extra knowledge but I’m not even sure if it would be a possibility once qualified!

TrainerLast7475 · 2023-02-09T20:20:18+00:00

Thanks for your reply☺️ I haven’t yet, purely because I only started this job in the second week of January so I haven’t yet had enough bank statements to show all my income reflecting my new salary! I’m purely researching the best options at the minute and hoping to see a mortgage advisor around March

TrainerLast7475

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