MATFLIX- education packages for midwives and maternity services
If you have been following the Maternity and Midwifery forum for a while, or new to it, you will have seen the logo for MATFLIX and may not have had the time to find out more. The title is a nod to a popular streaming service, but it is not quite the same!
The Maternity and midwifery forum has been up and running for many years now, with festival talks being filmed and published online since 2015. Back at that time filming events was unusual, surprising when you see how filming and watching for all has us has become so common place. This has accelerated since the pandemic, and everyone suddenly had to produce online material.
The Forum has a back catalogue of over 900 talks (with more to come this year), and six seasons (so far!) of the Midwifery Hour, from some of the best known speakers, researchers, clinicians and managers across maternity services in the UK and abroad.
This is a lot of education and information that is hidden to unlock.
Over the past three years I have had the privilege to start the process of drawing together this information into coherent themes relevant to midwifery and maternity education and practice. Selecting 4-6 videos from festivals or the midwifery hour these have been created into virtual box sets. In addition, we have added reference lists of relevant evidence and reports and included reflective questions with learning outcomes for each boxset. These questions are in line with the reflective requirements of the NMC revalidation process. This means an individual midwife may look at the videos, record their reflections, which can then be expanded upon for submission to the NMC when the time comes for revalidation. Individual students may also use these and reflect on their process of learning. Sending in a copy of a reflection will also generate a certificate for use in a portfolio as required.
Until now it has not been possible for educators in the UK to use the catalogue or sets for teaching purposes. We now have a link with Open Athens with the opportunity for Universities and Trusts to purchase a licence, which will enable educators and academics to use the material in the box sets and the back catalogue for teaching purposes. We anticipate that these could be used to show students prior to attending sessions in a “flipped classroom” way, enabling discussion on some of the key issues affecting midwifery and maternity today. The catalogue includes subjects that are also relevant to obstetricians and General Practitioners, such as Screening and Vaccination, antenatal care, mental wellbeing.
There is a whole series that has mapped through the development of the COVID pandemic which will be relevant to social and medical historians; topics relevant to managers, educators, reproductive health and feminist researchers, medical and mental health students. Some sets will be particularly useful for Trust mandatory education.
There is so much potential.
We are currently releasing new boxsets on a weekly basis as they are made available. For educators this is a major resource and will avoid reinventing the wheel.
If you have ideas for future topic and themes for sets please contact us with ideas.
Please see the website for details: https://www.matflix.co.uk/institutions/
Email: Paul Rushworth at [email protected] to request more information and prices.
Watch the presentation from Neil Stewart, Editorial Director, Maternity and midwifery forum here:
Dr Jenny Hall, Editor, MATFLIX