Influences on relationship-based health visiting, part 2: Discovering the need for balance through a new epistemology

Abstract

In the second part of a two-part article, the personal, professional and organisational influences on relationship-based practice clarified in part 1 are explored further, with the author reflecting on experiences and discussions with parents, colleagues and researchers. Using living theory methodology, in part 2 the author begins exploring influences of practitioner personality, fears, anxiety, autonomy, training, evidence building and organisational climate. Balance emerges as an additional value in the author's ‘alongside’ practice for managing these tensions. She calls for a wider shift towards the same qualities of relationships expected in families to be practised across organisations with children's wellbeing in mind. Further, she concludes by calling for a new epistemology of practice that is capable of integrating the practising, training and researching of health visiting by embracing contradictory experiences occurring in living relationships.