Any public health nurses work with children who have disabilites?

[WhatToDo]

I'm really interested in public health nursing as I already have an MPH and will be getting my BSN soon. I worked with a child who had cerebral palsy for a year during my first bachelor's and really enjoyed it. I'm curious if it is possible to work with disabled children in a public health nursing setting? If so, what exactly do you get to do?

[Jayla]

I don't work with children with disabilities, but a coworker of mine does. We work for a county public health department, and the program she works for is called High Risk Infants. Basically, she works with children that don't meet all the criteria for the Infants and Toddlers program (I think this is a federal program, but I'm not sure...we have it here in Maryland).

Anyway, she is the first contact with a family. The family might have concerns about the child's development, or the family might be referred by another source. My coworkers will assess the child and then if there are any issues she will refer the family out to other resources and track them to make sure the child's needs are being met. She does a lot of Denver II tests.

I can't tell you much more about this because I don't work in this program. I can tell you they need help and like to hire nurses with peds experience or experience working with kids with developmental disabilities.