Community Infant Feeding Team - Nursing Assistant

We are looking to recruit an Infant Feeding Support Worker, to work as part of the Infant Feeding Team in our North Manchester Office. This is an exciting opportunity to support parents with their infant feeding experience. The role involves working within a multi-disciplinary team, with Health Visitors, Midwives and the wider community, to provide a universal offer of feeding support to all families using research-based information. The role involves supporting parents in their homes, in groups or clinic settings, face to face and virtually. An interest in optimal feeding practices and the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative standards, will underpin your practice. There will be the opportunity to develop your knowledge and skills in this area and join a team, that is constantly evolving to meet the needs of Manchester families.

The post holder will be based in North Manchester and will be expected to travel citywide as a member of the Infant Feeding Team and will work with families who are experiencing feeding difficulties in the early postnatal weeks and months. The Infant Feeding Support Worker (IFSW) role is varied and requires sensitivity around making initial contact with families who have just had a baby. The IFSW will be able to make an offer of a home visit or video call to provide early interventions and support around infant feeding. The post holder will use effective communication skills to support clients in their homes, health centres and children's centres and will be skilled at delivering one to one and group activities, in community clinic settings and on a virtual platform. The role involves travel across Manchester and a car is an essential requirement for the role. The post holder will work with Health Visiting teams and the wider Infant Feeding Team offering families research based
information, acting as a liaison for health practitioners to ensure appropriate support for families who are experiencing any urgent, complex or ongoing challenges with infant feeding.

MFT is one of the largest NHS Trust In England with a turnover of £2.6bn & is on a different scale than most other NHS Trusts. We're creating an exceptional integrated health & social care system for the 1 million patients who rely on our services every year.

Bringing together 10 hospitals & community services from across Manchester, Trafford & beyond, we champion collaborative working & transformation, encouraging our 28,000 workforce to pursue their most ambitious goals. We set standards that other Trusts seek to emulate so you'll benefit from a scale of opportunity that is nothing short of extraordinary.

We've also created a digitally enabled organisation to improve clinical quality, patient & staff experience, operational effectiveness & driving research, and innovation through the introduction of Hive; our Electronic Patient Record system which launched in September 2022.

We're proud to be a major academic Research Centre & Education provider, providing you with a robust infrastructure to encourage and facilitate high-quality research programmes. What's more, we're excited to be embarking on our Green Plan which sets out how MFT continues to play its part in making healthcare more sustainable.

At MFT, we create and foster a culture of inclusion and belonging, provide equal opportunities for career development that are fair, open, and transparent, protecting your health and wellbeing and shaping the future of our organisation together.

At Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), our Nursing Assistants take great pride in the essential work we do. That's because we're not just helping patients, we're going the extra mile for them - day in, day out. But more than that, our team's commitment to work with empathy, consideration and dignity means that we're among the best - and most compassionate - in our field.

On joining MFT, you'll be supported to develop your knowledge and skills through our Support Worker Development Programme for Nursing Assistants that includes completion of the Care Certificate for candidates who have not completed this previously. The great news is, the completion of the Support Worker Development Programme will give you the opportunity to progress into a Band 3 Nursing Assistant role.

If you're a more experienced Nursing Assistant seeking a new opportunity in a Band 3 role, you'll undertake a skills analysis when you start to identify any gaps in your clinical skills knowledge needed for your role. You'll then be supported to access relevant modules from the clinical skills programme to support your progression to a Band 3 post on completion.