Child Health Team

The health of our children is a priority for parents, the community and the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board's Child Health Team.  

The Child Health Team has two main aims:

  1. Improving the health of the population as a whole (Public Health) 
  2. Improving the health of individuals and their families/whānau within that population/community (Personal Health)  

The team has a variety of skills and areas of interest:

  • Public health nurses who work mainly in the community promoting health and providing advice and support through schools and Early Childhood Education Centres (ECEC). They promote and deliver immunisation programmes. They undertake communicable disease detection and prevention work.  Decile 1-3 Hawke’s Bay secondary schools have on-site public health nurses to promote student and staff health.
  • Vision hearing technicians who work mainly in ECEC and schools to provide children’s vision and hearing screening; to detect hearing loss and vision defects.
  • Ear nurse specialist who provides a mobile van service to assess and treat children with ear problems. This service visits many schools and ECEC.
  • Health promoting schools facilitators who work alongside public health nurses to actively promote the health promoting schools framework to improve health and education outcomes for children and their whānau.
  • B4SC (before school check) coordinator works closely with Hawke’s Bay Health PHO to provide quality B4SCs for all Hawke’s Bay four year olds.
  • The Child Healthy Housing programme provides eligible families with insulation and other housing interventions to make homes warmer and healthier which will prevent rheumatic fever and respiratory illnesses. A social worker and kaiāwhina complete housing assessments and plans in collaboration with families. Kaiāwhina and community health workers work closely with all members of the team to promote whānau well being.

DHB Child Health Team  

The Hawke’s Bay District Health Board Child Health Team can be found at four sites, Monday to Friday from 8am-4:30pm:

The team works with many community organisations, agencies and Government departments to promote health and wellbeing within our community. They support individuals and population health through:

  • promoting health in schools
  • individual and family health services
  • school-based immunisation programmes
  • adolescent health/family planning
  • communicable disease control
  • rheumatic fever prevention programmes
  • prevention of hearing loss
  • promotion of breastfeeding and Well Child services
  • school-based health services
  • Child Healthy Housing programme.

The team also support the delivery of: