Senior / Staff Nurse (KidSTART)

Description of Division/Branch:

• NUH KidSTART is a new and unique multidisciplinary Home Visitation Programme to reduce social inequality. The Programme is now 2 years old. Our young and enthusiastic team specially reaches out to underprivileged pregnant mothers. The team has been instrumental in helping these vulnerable mothers who are in very difficult and complex family and social circumstances cope with their pregnancies and their newborn child.
• The NUH KidSTART nurse, working closely with multi-disciplinary team of obstetricians, neonatologists, paediatricians, psychiatrists, adolescent medical and gynaecological experts, dietitians, medical social workers to coordinate holistic medical and nursing support for pregnant mothers and their children.
• The nurse, together with the rest of the NUH KidSTART team, engages these vulnerable families from the early pregnancy period, coordinating care in the antenatal clinic, to after delivery in order to support and advise on pregnancy medical care, compliance with medications and compliance with the medical and nursing needs of pregnant mothers, foster healthful lifestyles for optimal maternal and fetal health, family planning, breastfeeding, encourage maternal-child bonding so as to give the best chance for the newborn to achieve its highest potential.
• The Programme will include a range of early childhood development initiatives, including supporting pregnant mothers through home visits and support groups, and to assess and monitor the progress of children’s health and development. 
• The Programme will actively engage families, social/ community partners and government agencies to provide systematic, integrated and holistic support to children and their families.

Job Purpose

• The nurse is the key front-line team member providing home visitation services in order to deliver vital medical and nursing care to vulnerable pregnant mothers and their children who might otherwise fall through the cracks of our healthcare system.
• She is expected to be involved in home visits as part of a team.
• She partners the multi-disciplinary medical team to deliver medical and nursing care to these underprivileged mothers who are frequently not knowledgeable about best health practices. The nurse based on the home visits needs to understand the particular difficulties the family is facing whether financial, social or intellectual and think of innovative ways to enable these families to follow the medical prescriptions and follow-up visits required by the clinical care team.
• The nurse serves as a interpreter and facilitator for the clinical care team. The nurse ensures that medical and nursing needs of these complex families in difficult circumstances are met in the home outside the hospital environment. Care delivered to these complex families includes provides parentcraft education, emotional support, and advice to mothers on antenatal care, adherence to prescriptions and medications, breastfeeding, family planning, and infant care.
• The nurse delivers care through all possible touchpoints in order to connect with these families. These clinical touchpoints include times when they are waiting to see the doctor at the antenatal clinics or waiting for ultrasound scan appointments, when admitted to wards or during scheduled or even unannounced home visits.
• She also collaborates closely with other members of the team to facilitate efficient clinical care coordination for participants throughout the antenatal phase, postnatal and infancy periods up till the period of transition to other KidSTART and community social service agencies.

Duties and Responsibilities

1. This is mainly a pregnancy care program. Nurses would be interacting with vulnerable pregnant mothers to encourage them to attend clinics and to be compliant with medical advice. Nurses would provide social and psychological support to these pregnant mothers.
2. The role of nurses will involve home visits during patients’ antenatal period and post-delivery periods.
3. The Nurse will work closely NUH team members and with other external KidSTART agencies and social service agencies in the community to ensure the continuing well-being of these vulnerable mothers and their children.
4. Early referrals to community services, as well as coordination with existing community partners to support the families holistically.
5. Participate actively and contribute to discussions in team meetings, supervision sessions, training and multidisciplinary case reviews.
6. Contribute to the regular reviews of existing programmes and processes with the team.
7. Contribute to the evaluation and fidelity monitoring of service delivery through consistency in administrative work, provision of data and information on cases in a timely manner.
8. Cultivate a positive relationship with eligible families in the antenatal clinic so as to enrol them into the NUH KidSTART Home Visitation Programme

Antenatally

• • Access to prenatal care.
  • Education and support to improve the nutritional value of mothers’ diets and reduction of tobacco, alcohol and illegal substances.
  • Emotional support to prepare for the arrival of the babies, especially for first time mothers. This includes the nurses observing, screening and flagging up maternal mental health and high risk pregnancy issues that mothers may face.
  • Knowledge and skills on mothercraft activities and breastfeeding.
  • Education on family planning and birth spacing options.

Postnatally

• • Prompt vaccination of newborns
  • Enable new mothers to develop skills to care for themselves and their children and identify developmental milestones.
  • Provide anticipatory guidance in respect to perceived need. (For example, maternal health and well-being, breastfeeding issues, contraceptive advice, child safety, sudden infant death syndrome, smoking, crying, comforting,)
  • Knowledge about the full range of normal behaviours in children, and skills on positive parenting approaches for coping.
  • Awareness on the use of contraception for future family planning.

Job Requirements

• Diploma in Nursing or Degree in Nursing from recognized training institution as approved by the Singapore.
• Advanced Diploma in Nursing (midwifery) would be an advantage.
• Passionate and committed to work with underprivileged mothers and their children
• Empathetic towards the needs and challenges of underprivileged mothers and their children
• Excellent team player with good interpersonal and communication skills
• Capacity to reflect on key strengths and needs and motivated to enhance personal effectiveness and efficiency at work
• Flexible and nimble towards organisational change and development
• Motivated towards learning and professional development
• Willing and able to work on some weekday evenings and weekends
• Fluency in another language such as Malay, Mandarin or Tamil will be useful