Maternal and Child Health Professional: 

I work here at a Two Nurse Centre which not everyone does. So I suppose in the morning I say hello and at lunch time and after work. Also, telephone contact with our manager and things, but probably contact talking about clients and things, I don’t know, maybe half an hour a day if you added it all together. 

Our council does these network meetings which is with local people involved with Early Childhood services. So sometimes at those network meetings, which is just 3 or 4 times a year, we’ll meet up with other providers. But that’s voluntary whether we go along or not, and the same with them. At our nurses meetings often we’ll have, for education, a special guest speaker which might be a GP or a podiatrist or a chiropractor or a child physiotherapist or something like that. Occasionally if we are worried about a client we might have direct contact with a GP or a paediatrician or something but it’s not a regular thing. The majority of the day is contact with parents, or it’s about parents. Even the admin stuff with checking for emails it’s usually about clients or transferring people in or out of the centre or organising home visits and things, so it is all to do with the clients. But yes the majority of the time is face-to-face with the clients. 

I get a buzz when if you have had a client with an issue that you’ve been working through and you give them some advice and things and then when you see them the next time it’s sorted and you think some of what you’ve said has made an impact as well has things they’ve worked out for themselves. I suppose if you can help fix a problem for them that’s quite satisfying. Sometimes you feel like you have people come back over and over again and you’re discussing the same issues over and over again and they don’t seem to take up anything that you’ve suggested but they still want to keep talking about it. So sometimes you’re just thinking ‘am I here as a sounding board or do they want advice’? So trying to work out how to cope with that when you’re wanting to fix it for them and it’s not happening. 

Sometimes you go through phases with your work when it’s just plodding along and then other times you think you can be learning heaps of things. It’s a really satisfying job in that respect that you can keep learning. Sometimes it just depends on how much time you have got to reflect on what you’ve done or what clients you have come across. Your clients can teach you a lot.