Today we officially welcome 10 School Health Nurses into the Tasmanian Department of Education, marking a significant milestone in the reintroduction of the role in our schools.
These specialist staff will play a crucial part in supporting our school communities and creating an environment that promotes lifelong health and wellbeing.
Over the past year stakeholders have been consulted to develop an implementation plan for the roll out of the School Health Nurse Program, a $5.8 million commitment of this Government.
Stage One of the process has involved recruiting 10 full time equivalent Registered Nurses, who today took part in an induction program ahead of starting work in Term 3.
There are five Primary School Nurses and five Secondary School Nurses, with three to be based in the north-west, three in the north and four in the south.
Nurses will collaborate with support staff including psychologists, speech pathologists, social workers, vision and hearing services, physical impairment coordinators and autism consultants.
In primary schools, nurses will largely focus on vision and hearing checks, developmental checks and nutrition.
In high schools, they will look at areas like mental health and wellbeing, body image, healthy relationships and nutrition.
Across all levels of school, the nurses will also deliver local, state and national health promotion initiatives and targeted screening.
It is expected that by July 2017 there will be 20 full time equivalent nurses working across Tasmanian schools, and each nurse will be allocated a number of schools within their region.
For the full list of schools go to: http://tinyurl.com/q2kyhzd
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