This is an approved course which leads to registration on part 3 of the register as a Specialist Community Public Health Nurse (Health Visiting); a public health approach to healthcare provision requires particular knowledge and skills, therefore this course is designed to educate nurses and midwives to become public health nurses so that they can contribute positively to the new public health agenda and gain employment as health visitors; the course outcomes reflect the nursing and midwifery council standards for specialist community public health nursing and encapsulate the 10 principles which underpin public health nursing; the course is a practice-centred course and is delivered on a 50% taught theory and 50% practice basis over 52 programmed weeks for the 1 year full-time route and 104 programmed weeks for the 2 year part-time route; practice-based learning is central to the course and students are allocated a practice teacher by your sponsoring organisation who facilitates their learning in practice and is responsible for the assessment of their competence in practice; during the course each student explores evidence appraisal, which facilitates the understanding of the evidence which underpins and supports practice; in addition students also explore public health and practice facilitating development of their relevant knowledge in relation to the current public health agenda; leadership in relation to health visiting practice is also addressed along with the health needs, protection and surveillance of the child and family in a health visiting context; each student�s practice experience enables them to link their theoretical knowledge base to practice; there is a 10 week period of supervised practice at the end of the course.