School Nursing

School Nursing delivers services that are visible, accessible and confidential regardless of educational provision. We pride ourselves on ensuring that early help and extra support is available to children and young people when they need it.

Team

Cheryl Newton
Group Director of Nursing for Women’s and Child Health

Shawinder Basra-Dhillon
Operational Manager/Clinical Lead

Heidi Ferrier-Hixon
School Nurse Team Leader

Joanne Toovey
School Nurse Team Leader

The team also comprises of band 5 and 6 nurses, healthcare support workers and admin support.

Services

The School Nursing team provides a consistent approach across the borough of Sandwell. All secondary schools have a named school health nurse (SHN) although schools can contact any team member for advice or support. A duty nurse is available Monday to Friday to answer general enquiries.

School Nurses will provide support and advice for a wide variety of health needs and will signpost or refer on as appropriate.

If you are ever unsure if your referral is appropriate please do not hesitate to contact our Duty Nurse.  All referrals into the service are subject to a triage process hence if information has been omitted or the referral is inappropriate we will contact you to discuss this further.

Hear 4 U

We have introduced the Hear 4 U sessions for all secondary schools across Sandwell. It is an opportunity for children and young people to ‘drop in’ and speak to a nurse confidentially without the need for an appointment.

Primary school parent drop in sessions

All primary schools are offered the opportunity to run a primary school parent drop in session which is facilitated by the support staff. They will be able to escalate any issues raised to the school nurse. This isn’t an alternative to accessing a GP surgery. 

CHAT Health

Chat Health is a text service enabling young people at secondary school to reach out to our school nurses to ask for help about a range of issues, or make an appointment with one of our school nurses confidentially.

The service is for anyone aged 11-19 looking for advice on a wide range of issues such as bullying, emotional health and wellbeing, sexual health as well as illnesses. The service is available across Sandwell.

Through Chat Health, we can also link young people into other local services including emotional support or sexual health services.

Chat health works because it is:

• Confidential
• Quick and easy
• Anonymous
• Non-judgemental

Schools can signpost young people to the Sandwell CHAT Health service through posters and cards or by passing the Sandwell CHAT Health number directly on.  To use the service text: 07480635486

National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP)

Sandwell School Nurses continue to deliver the NCMP across the authority offering growth checks for children in reception and year 6  in line with national guidance.

Safeguarding

We have dedicated support from the Trust’s safeguarding team who offer expert advice, training and supervision.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM): As a service working with children and young people it is essential that we all have a good overview of the new guidance that has come into place around FGM and mandatory reporting and recording. We will continue to all work together to support new localised pathways.

Forced Marriage:  As a service we continue to be passionate about the prevention of forced marriage ensuring that this remains a priority across the authority not only at those key points in the year before school holidays but throughout the whole of the academic year.

Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE): All our school nurses have received training around child sexual exploitation and we currently have two champions within the service.  As a service we utilise a CSE screening tool to identify levels of risk.

Contacts

To contact the service please see below: 

The Lyng Healthy Living Centre
Frank Fisher Way
West Bromwich
Sandwell
B70 7AW

Tel: 0121 612 2974

email: swbh.shnsandwell@nhs.net