Last week the Maternity and Midwifery Forum’s Northern Festival took place at Etihad Stadium, Manchester. Take a look at the winners from the Northern Maternity and Midwifery Trailblazer Awards Ceremony. The Awards recognised outstanding achievement and commitment to maternity and midwifery services over the past year across the Northern region.
Narrowcast Media Group produced, filmed and live streamed the Awards Ceremony on the day. You can watch back the ceremony on-demand today and catch up on all of the action from the day that you may have missed.
Watch the ceremony (below) and take a look back at some of special moments from the day in this article.
Watch the awards here: https://vimeo.com/961260631
Midwife Education Trailblazer Award – Commended
“Rachael has made such a huge difference to the confidence, the learning development and the success of so many students at NU. During what was a highly stressful and emotional time for my cohort, Rachael came in to teach us under what must have been very difficult circumstances. Rachael always showed us how much she wanted us to be successful and pushed herself to get the very best out of us. She always goes above and beyond to provide the learning materials we need”.
Midwife Education Trailblazer Award – Commended
An exceptional member of the team and a pleasure to work with. Her wealth of experience and knowledge has been particularly beneficial to the team, drawing upon experience of working in different organisations. Christina is a caring and compassionate individual, always making time for colleagues and students – even if this puts her under more pressure. Furthermore, Christina’s hard work and commitment is recognised by many, with students singing her praises too. Her compassionate leadership is certainly a role model for all, supporting her colleagues and students, ultimately aiming for the best outcomes for women, birthing people, babies and families.
Midwifery Education Team Award – Winners
“Inter-professional team demonstrated kind leadership, support and encouragement, centred on the needs of the student. Professionally, they accommodated my incredible demands – combining midwifery with an academic role would not have been possible without their flexibility and seasoned approach to adult learning- including through a recent bereavement. Your advice, encouragement and guidance have proved invaluable and allowed me to develop professionally and personally beyond what I ever thought possible… I hope I make you proud”.
Midwifery Education Team Award – Highly Commended
Demonstrate they are a supportive team placing the students and women/birthing people, babies and families at the heart of all they do! The team has faced an unsettled time with changes to the team, throughout this time, the team has shown such kindness and compassion to each other (inside and outside of work), supporting individuals and striving to maintain a quality experience for our students. Now they are in a much stronger position with a more established team and effective channels of communication & working.
Midwifery Practice Education Trailblazer Award – Commended
Beth is not a midwife but has been seconded to the midwifery Practice Placement Facilitator role to support the midwifery team. Since commencing the role, she has worked to develop new placements, such as the 0-19 service, which was highly evaluated by the students. Beth has also implemented a pilot scheme for the coaching model on the postnatal ward. In preparation for this, she undertook training for practice supervisors and students, created resources to support the pilot and organised it’s integration into the ward processes. Initial feedback from student’s is very positive about the pilot and Beth will be evaluating it formally to see how we can develop this further. Whilst not a midwife, Beth has been an invaluable support and resource for both Northumbria University students but also the lecturing team.
Midwifery Practice Education Trailblazer Award – Commended
Trailblazing antenatal education providing free online education. In pandemic adapted by moving classes online, ensuring that crucial education remained accessible to expecting parents. Innovative approach, extensive reach, and unwavering commitment to supporting new and expectant parents -contributions have not only improved individual experiences of pregnancy and childbirth but have also set a new standard for antenatal education in the digital age.
Midwifery Practice Team Trailblazer Award – Winners
The research midwifery team at LWH demonstrate incredible commitment to improving care for women and babies through successful clinical research delivery. They have successfully embedded clinical research into routine practice. Through positive role modelling and leadership, the team engage midwives with their research role from the earliest timepoint in clinical training. Several team members hold dual research and clinical roles, enhancing relationships in the clinical setting and allowing opportunities for positive role modelling. Staff are more confident to seek support from the Research Midwives, going some way to facilitate the ‘conceptual leap’ to embedding research into clinical practice. To further embed research into clinical practice, the team have developed a one-day placement for every 3rd year student midwife at LWH, increasing knowledge of delivery and conduct of clinical research and providing the opportunity to hold GCP certification upon qualification. They have also developed a bespoke elective placement for student midwives which has received very positive feedback.
Midwifery Practice Leader Trailblazer Award – Commended
Sunita Banga, Equality and Diversity Midwife, Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
The equality and diversity midwife for the trust, she was my mentor whilst on community placement and the way she helps women is completely inspiring including running a charitable group outside of work where people can make donations of old or unwanted/unused baby items and she distributes them to women who are fleeing domestic violence, refugee women and women who are facing the worst poverty.
Her passion and drive to support all birthing people and couples is second to none and If can take even a quarter of what she has taught me into my own midwifery journey I’ll be incredibly proud.
Sunita truly deserves this opportunity as throughout all she does she never seeks praise or recognition it is all done from the genuine goodness of her own heart and I would love to see her nominated for this award.
Midwifery Practice Leader Trailblazer Award – Commended
Over the past 12 months she has been a major support for the two specialist midwives working within an MDT multiple pregnancy midwifery team in progressing positive work-place outcomes.
Julie was honest and frank in her approach and made sure we knew what we had to try to do to get where we needed to be. She showed exceptional leadership by being warm and compassionate when things were difficult but kept us motivated along the way. When we secured the outcome, she celebrated with us and for us. We feel incredibly lucky to have her as our leader. She is now our direct manager and ensures we keep an excellent work life balance, the wellbeing of her staff is clearly very important to her. She is an instrumental part of allowing us to drive our service forward and fulfil our vision for the care that we give. We could not be more grateful.
Student Midwife Trailblazer Award – Highly Commended
Stacey is an absolute asset to Midwifery and it’s been a pleasure to be a part of her journey.
Through the University’s PMA service, we have a monthly award whereby students can nominate each other in recognition for their excellence – unsurprisingly, it’s called the ‘Recognition of Student Excellence Award’. Each month, Stacey has received at least one nomination – each from a different student. These nominations have ranged from peers in her own cohort, to learners from first and second year. Feedback from her peers has praised the support provided inside university and in clinical practice, checking in with her peers and answering any questions they may have and demonstrating such a kind and caring nature.
Through supporting her peers, Stacey has demonstrated the true compassion and kindness needed in maternity services today, being an empowering role model to future midwives.
Maternity and Midwifery Forum Editorial Team
June 24
If you would like to make an award nomination for your colleague or yourself, please use our online form here, and we will see you at the next festival event of the series – FREE Wales and South West England Maternity and Midwifery Festival – 17 September, Bath Racecourse.