0-5 Health Visiting
All families with a child under five in Gateshead have access to a Health Visiting 0-5 Team, consisting of Health Visitors, Early Years Practitioners and Family Nurse Partnership. They provide expert health assessments, advice, support and interventions for babies, children and families.
The Team encourages and supports parents and carers to develop life-long skills to enable them to make informed choices that affect their family’s future health and wellbeing.
The Team works in community settings to deliver universal and targeted interventions designed to meet public health outcomes. We ensure the emotional and physical health and wellbeing of families, children and young people across Gateshead.
The team aims to help build parents’ confidence in their ability to give their child the best start in life and listen carefully when parents have concerns. It identifies and builds on what is going well, and provides information to help parents find their own solutions to problems where possible.
Some common areas of information and support:
•Pregnancy and transition into parenthood
•Infant feeding/ specialist breast feeding support
•Growth and nutrition
•Healthy eating
•Dental health
•Development
•Behaviour
•Accident prevention
•Safe sleeping
•Speech and language development
•Immunisations
•Common childhood illness/infection
•Safeguarding
•Postnatal depression and emotional wellbeing
•Parenting


5-19 School Nursing Team
We work with children, young people and families to empower and enable them to make informed decisions about health, and to support them in transitioning safely and happily into adult life. The 5-19 Service works in community settings to deliver universal and targeted interventions designed to meet public health outcomes. We ensure the emotional and physical health and wellbeing of families, children and young people across Gateshead. The team includes School Nurses, School Staff Nurse, Screeners and an emotional and wellbeing resilience nurse.
The School Nursing team provides a service to all children and young people of school age, and their families, whether or not they are attending school. We offer advice and information, and assess health needs on children entering school and on transfer to secondary schools. We are the first point of contact for schools when there are concerns about a child’s health and wellbeing. We are also responsible for:
•Measuring and weighing children in reception and year 6 as part of the National Child Measurement Programme;
•Providing enuresis (involuntary urination) advice and support
•Providing emotional health and wellbeing support;
•Supporting children and families with additional health needs or disability
•Parenting and behavioural problems
•Risk taking behaviour including drugs and alcohol
•Stopping smoking
•Relationships, sexual health & pregnancy
•Promoting healthy lifestyles in schools and communities through health education
•Support for children and Young People who are Looked After
•Safeguarding of children and Young People

They work closely with Health Visitors so that children and families with complex health and social care needs are identified early. We support the development and implementation of health management plans to promote the child’s health and wellbeing, school attendance, education and attainment.

SEND Team
The SEND team (special educational needs and disabilities) are part of the 0-19 team working closely with parents and schools. They provide specialist support in areas such as toileting, eating, sleeping and behaviour. They promote healthy lifestyles and offer health assessments to children, young people and their families. The team will offer the same service to all children and young people whatever their needs and will adapt the way in which they support to best suit individual needs.