This is the first national Children’s Nurses’ Day – established by the Association of British Paediatric Nurses. With over 22,000 members across our children and young people’s nursing (CYP) forums, Children’s Nurses’ Day is a great opportunity to share a little more about what we do as children's nurses, and to share our appreciation for everybody working in this field.

It is easy to focus on the immediate, visible, magic of nursing in paediatrics. We acknowledge the gentle hands that soothe a frightened sick toddler; the expert clinical precision needed to manage a complex neonatal unit; the continuously adaptive teaching; the complexity of prevention and early years interventions; the boundless strength needed to guide a teenager through a life-altering diagnosis; the evaluation of current practice that changes how we nurse.

These moments are profound. But if you look closer, you will see that the impact of CYP nursing does not stop at first contact, nor does it end when a patient turns eighteen.

CYP nursing staff are actively shaping the health, wealth, and systemic resilience of our entire society. We are safety critical, educated professionals - regardless of where we are based or what our role is called.

Every day, CYP nursing staff are doing something extraordinary: we are rewriting the health history of the child in our care. The root causes of many chronic adult illnesses: from diabetes and respiratory diseases to severe mental health struggles, are often anchored in childhood.

When a CYP nurse teaches a family how to manage a child’s asthma, catches a developmental delay early, or provides mental health intervention to a care-experienced, vulnerable adolescent, we are potentially preventing a lifetime of chronic illness.

We aren't just supporting a child; we are protecting the adult that child will become. 

We know adult services are overwhelmed by chronic lifestyle diseases and late-stage diagnoses. By intervening early, CYP nurses reduce the future burden on adult health care systems, ensuring a healthier, longer-living population for generations to come. 

But sustaining this requires three critical factors:

• Protecting field-specific education: We must defend the unique pre, and post-graduate registration knowledge frameworks essential to care of babies, children and young people. Preserving distinct expertise prevents the dilution of skills, and safeguards deep knowledge on how health and societal factors affect child development.
• Enforcing safe staffing ratios: We must mandate evidence-based staffing numbers to stop care omissions and prevent rapid clinical deterioration. Implementing these numbers is also vital to mitigate unsustainable CYP nurse burnout.
• Prioritising public health nurses: Specialist Community Public Health Nurses act as the ultimate gatekeepers for the NHS. Recent survey data shows that severe understaffing leaves health visitors and school nurses unable to deliver mandatory developmental reviews. Without delivering this high-quality, targeted care during these critical formative years, Health Visitors and School Nurses will struggle to lower the rate of future adult health problems. We are already seeing the warning signs: infant mortality rates stalling, vaccination rates falling, obesity rates rising, children and young people’s mental health in crisis. Any future adult health care systems impacted by preventable conditions will be a costly mistake if left unaddressed. CYP nursing is a direct investment in health, education and future workforce infrastructures. 

This Children’s Nurses’ Day, please celebrate with colleagues whose kindness, humour and teamwork gets you through the tough days. We also need to use this opportunity to actively reclaim our professional narrative and become fierce advocates for our specialism. 

Speak up in your workplaces to defend field-specific education. Advocate for safe workforce standards. Share the clinical data that proves our economic impact. Know your value.  Join our RCN CYP forums so you can get involved by sharing your voice and learning more about the impact CYP nursing staff are having in policy development – read the recent blog by RCN Head of Nursing Practice Carli Whittaker for more on this!

To every CYP nursing member reading this: never underestimate the scale of your impact. You are not "just" caring for a child. You are steadying families, leading and educating those around you, relieving pressure on the wider health care infrastructure and building a healthier world.

Your expertise is a gift to the children of today, and the foundation for the society of tomorrow.