Infant Feeding Support Worker
Job summary
Infant Feeding Support Worker Division: Women, Children and Young People Care Group: Women's Care Band: 4 Salary: £28,392 - £31,157 per annum pro rata Interview Date: expected to be held the week commencing 02 November 2026 We are recruiting for an Infant Feeding Support Worker who shares our ambition and vision to deliver the Best of Care by the Best People and has the drive to take us forward, by ensuring that the Trust continues to be the first choice for patients and our staff.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will work as an integral part of our Infant Feeding team to deliver high quality, family-centred support to the population of Medway and Swale. The Infant feeding team are externally funded by Medway Council as part of their Start for Life funding. The aim of our team is to support all families who have care at Medway hospital from pregnancy until 6 weeks postnatally.
We offer support through antenatal education, specialist clinics, inpatient support, home visits and social group facilitation. As we are a Level 3 BFI Accredited Trust, the post-holder will work in collaboration with the Infant Feeding Specialist Midwife to uphold the UNICEF BFI standards. They will deliver evidence based infant feeding support, and have meaningful feeding conversations in both the antenatal and postnatal period.
They will be willing to undertake training courses to enhance their existing knowledge. Our values are B old, E very Person Counts, S haring and Open and T ogether. It is important that you understand and to refer to our values when completing your application and always reflect our values throughout your employment with the Trust.
We are committed to endorsing diversity, multiculturalism, and inclusion; our policies / procedures ensure that all applicants are treated fairly at every stage of the recruitment process. To contribute to our exciting future and become part of our team, apply today.
About us
Do you have the ambition and vision to deliver our mission of the Best of Care by the Best of People providing excellent care, every time ? Here at Medway, we pride ourselves on working together as one to ensure that our shared vision is achieved for our patients. As a key partner in the healthcare of our local population, we are keen to deliver this as an outcome of our Trust-wide strategy - Patient First.
Using an Operational Excellence approach to align our priorities and operational management structures, we are just over a year and half into our Patient First deployment. We are looking for creative, skilled people to join our Transformation Team and further support us on this journey. Our culture and values define us here at Medway NHS Foundation Trust and are the heartbeat of who we are as an organisation.
Our BEST values underpin Patient First and are at the core of the care we give to our patients, the support we offer to our staff and our overall leadership approach: B - Bold E - Every person counts S - Sharing and open T - Together Our Trust is a great choice for people who want to develop their career in an ambitious and dynamic environment; our employees are able to choose the coverage and supplemental benefits that best fit their needs and those of their families.
This includes the promotion of flexible working opportunities across the Trust.
Job responsibilities
The post-holder will strive to support our families with the most complex feeding needs, and reduce the impact of the biggest risk factors for feeding related issues and readmission.
The post-holder will practice throughout the maternity unit but will primarily be based on the postnatal ward and within the community, The post-holder will be eager to provide Antenatal and Postnatal education to our families in both small and large groups, virtually and face to face. Always complying with the Medway NHS Foundation Trust Infant Feeding Guidelines and policies.
Key Responsibilities To ensure all women receive appropriate support and advice with their chosen method of feeding To support mothers to develop their relationship with their babies in the antenatal and postnatal period, to facilitate brain development and attachment To work in collaboration with the Infant Feeding Lead and Support Midwife and assist them to give family centred support, and referral if appropriate To help the Infant Feeding lead maintain the UNICEF standards throughout the trust Offer specialist support and guidance to facilitate mothers to initiate and sustain breastfeeding - across a multitude of settings e.g. community, hospital, group settings and over the phone Support mothers with complex breastfeeding needs e.g. multiple births, babies on NICU, pre-term babies.
Identify when feeding is not going well and refer to multidisciplinary services appropriately - e.g. specialist feeding clinic, health visiting, neonatal doctors To support and/or facilitate breastfeeding support groups and provide antenatal and postnatal education Working with antenatal women and their families to promote the service and the benefits of breastfeeding Help collect data, statistics and feedback to use for audit and to improve the service To provide face to face and telephone feeding support to families, up to 6 weeks post birth, both in the hospital setting and community setting.
Person Specification
Qualifications Essential oUNICEF BFI Management Course/Peer Counsellor course or other equivalent higher breastfeeding training Knowledge & Understanding
Essential
Good level of written and spoken English Awareness and/or experience of the Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative Knowledge of local, national and global strategies relevant to breastfeeding and infant feeding Understanding of peer support programmes, how they work and why they work Good understanding of breast anatomy, mechanism of breastfeeding, factors required to breastfeed and able to identify barriers to achieve this. Good understanding of how to support parents to safely and responsively formula feed.
Skills · Essential
Excellent communication skills - verbal and documentation Good time management skills Able to prioritize and appropriately triage competing demands Work well within the MDT and have a good understanding of limitations Be a confident advocate for families
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab) . From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab) .
