Changing childbirth – Midwives making a difference

Posted Saturday 20 April 2024 | The Nurses for Nurses Network and Education at Sea

There is irrefutable evidence telling us that a woman who receives continuity of care from a Midwife has significantly better outcomes for herself and her baby. In addition, there is increasing evidence that Midwives who are well resourced and empowered to work in this way have improved job satisfaction, health, and wellbeing.

Increasing numbers of Midwives are wanting to work in this way but progress to widescale implementation remains slow. This conference will provide a platform to enable and empower Midwives who want to develop a deeper understanding around how they can make their contribution to changing the way we deliver maternity care to ensure optimal outcomes for women – their families and the Midwifery profession.

By the end of this conference you will:

• have a deep understanding of woman centred primary maternity care
• be able to critique current models of maternity care in Australia
• have an understanding of how to design and implement a woman centred maternity model of care
• recognise and plan how you can make a difference and contribute to woman centred maternity care
• be able to develop skills and resources to enable you sustain personal wellness in the workplace.

Presenters

Dr Jocelyn Toohill
Director of Midwifery, Clinical Excellence Division, Queensland Health. Adjunct Assoc Professor Griffith University.

Dr Jocelyn Toohill is a passionate and experienced midwife of nearly three decades and completed a PhD in 2014 of a multicentred randomised controlled trial for women with childbirth fear.  Her maternity and midwifery expertise spans clinical, management, education, governance and safety, academia, and research.

In her current role as Director of Midwifery OCNMO Queensland, she leads strategic direction for the profession of midwifery, represents and advocates for midwives to have a voice in their profession, and for midwives to be acknowledged for their unique and discrete skills. She believes all midwives should be supported to work to their full scope and based on best evidence, that all women should have access to a known midwife.

Dr Toohill supports health services across the state to scale up and roll out best practice continuity of midwifery carer models and promotes midwives’ professional practice and career pathways. She is a member of the Transforming Maternity Collaborative, a multidisciplinary group collaborating on research and disseminating best evidence and practice.

Professor Mary Sidebotham
PhD RM RN MA.

Professor Mary Sidebotham is committed to the pursuit of excellence in midwifery education through the design implementation and evaluation of midwifery education programs. Her expertise and leadership in the field of midwifery education was acknowledged by her receipt in 2013 of an Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) Citation for inspirational leadership in the development, delivery and evaluation of midwifery education that strengthens the Australian workforce and promotes international best practice.

In 2017 she received the Australian Awards for University Teachers (AAUT) Program Award for "Innovation and flexibility in curricula, learning and teaching”. In 2018 she was conferred principal fellowship of the international Higher Education Academy. Mary contributes to maintaining academic excellence in her role as Deputy Editor in Chief of the peer-reviewed journal Nurse Education in Practice.

Mary is an experienced researcher with 70 + papers published in peer-review journals. She is currently the Deputy Director of the Transforming Maternity Care Collaborative.  Her program of research is aligned to the maternity reform agenda and includes investigation of workplace culture, midwifery identity, professionalism in midwifery and the integration of student midwives into professional practice.

Mary is international lead of the Work Health and Emotional Lives of Midwives (WHELM) group and leads the program of work investigating the emotional wellbeing of midwives. She has a growing interest in the promotion of clinical supervision as an effective way of promoting emotional wellbeing, resilience and sustainability within the midwifery workforce.