Alison Higley
I have been an active member of Unite/CPHVA
since my student health visitor days holding a variety of centre
officer positions and also representative at regional committee. I
was an LAR for many years and prior to that health and safety rep.
More recently I held the position of regional chair in the old
structure and therefore represented East Midlands on the then
Executive Committee.
I was voted by my colleagues to be vice chair
for the National Professional Committee and will do my best to
support Angela Roberts in her position as chair in taking forward
issues raised by the membership to promote and defend our unique
role in delivering public health initiatives for the families and
children we support.
I have been a health visitor for more than 3
decades and for most of those I have been a Practice Teacher,
supporting SCPHN students in embracing their role, and developing
skills to a high quality. To my great pleasure, many of my
former students now hold positions of leadership or are Practice
Teachers themselves.
My role now is as Professional Development
Lead for Derbyshire Community Health Services with responsibility
for clinical quality, audit and professional development for
children, young people and specialist services for children’s
services. My remit also covers developing policies and
standards for practice for our services and for the recruitment and
selection of SCPHN students, and Practice Teachers, and for the
wider agenda of supporting specialist practice.
My particular interests lie in education and
professional development and developing leadership skills in
others. I am dedicated to developing a quality assured service so
standards, guidelines and benchmarking against service delivery is
one of my themes. I have also been actively involved with
Booktrust since it began its national programme of Book Start and
have represented Amicus/CPHVA consistently on their committee.
I work closely with our professional officers
with particular regard to educational issues.
As Vice-Chair I have been active in the Action
for Health Visiting booklet and remain involved in working with the
DH on the next stage work.
