Child Safety Week - Meet the team

As part of Child Safety Week (6th - 12th June) CLCH is shining a spotlight on the work of their safeguarding team in educating parents on how babies can be protected from Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID). Here, we meet Catherine Hunter, named nurse for safeguarding in Hammersmith & Fulham, Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea.

Can you tell me a bit about your role?

I am a named nurse for safeguarding children across Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster for CLCH.

My role involves safeguarding children, young people and adults by identifying and minimising risk in their home environment. I work with other organisations like social services, the police and other agencies and I provide safeguarding training for clinical staff.

I also work with practitioners giving advice and support about how you identify an issue or if they’re concerned, how they navigate that to minimise harm to someone.

Safeguarding is the responsibility of all healthcare professionals.

How important is safe sleeping in young infants?

When a baby is born the midwife will discuss safe sleeping briefly. During the antenatal period, the baby is then visited by a health visitor from CLCH and we share information and advice  about safe sleeping from the Lullaby Trust.

Educating families about safer sleeping involves an on-going conversation so our philosophy is that every contact our health visitors has with families, counts.

Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths (SUIDs) are preventable and babies die unnecessarily, so it’s crucial that safer sleeping messages are communicated to all healthcare professionals seeing a family..

Can you tell me about an experience where you’ve helped a family?

I recently had an experience where a mother was planning to co-sleep because she said she had researched it and had come to the conclusion that it was safe to do, but then after seeing one of our professionals she decided not to. It’s really important that families are provided with the right information around co-sleeping so that if they decide to do this, they can do so safely.

If there are identified risk factors, co-sleeping should be discouraged and parents must be informed.

It’s also important to document conversations as part of best practice and provide relevant up to date information. At CLCH we also ensure information is accessible to those where English is not the first language or if any parents or carers have a learning disability.