School Nurse Recruiting Begins

The Hodgman Liberal Government is committed to improving education.

Today I am very pleased to announce the recruitment of child health and youth health nurses has started.

Stage One of the process involves recruiting 10 Registered Nurses who will begin work in Tasmanian Government schools from July this year.

These positions are advertised in this week’s Tasmanian Government Gazette and will be advertised in Tasmania’s major newspapers on Saturday.

This is a significant step towards reintroducing school nurses, who play a crucial role in supporting our school communities and creating an environment that promotes lifelong health and wellbeing.

Over the past 12-months stakeholders have been extensively consulted to develop an implementation plan for the roll out of the School Health Nurse Program.

The program includes dedicated Primary School Nurses and Secondary School nurses, who will provide health services to students in targeted schools across Tasmania.

In primary schools, nurses will focus on vision and hearing checks and nutrition, while in high schools risk behaviours and mental health will receive greater attention.

Nurses will liaise and collaborate with current support staff including school psychologists, speech pathologists, social workers, vision and hearing services, autism consultants and physical impairment coordinators.

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. Applications for the positions will close on April 8. For a full position description and application details go to www.jobs.tas.gov.au
Jeremy Rockliff, Minister for Education and Training