We are all aware of the challenges taking place for those in the maternity services. Students are part of this group and many indicate they are struggling with lack of support. Dr Juliet Rayment, Humanising Care Fellow, The Point of Care Foundation, shares the development of the Positive Midwifery project aiming to help students to thrive in practice, and encourages us all to join.
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Summary points
- The Positive Midwifery Project explored what support student midwives need to keep their ‘spark’ alive during practice placements.
- The project gathered positive examples of existing good practice that have helped students to thrive in placements.
- Students, Practice Supervisors, Practice Assessors and Lecturers all saw the value of supportive relationships, kindness, trust, and inclusion of students during placements.
- Relationships and emotional support were as, or more, important to students as curriculum teaching.
- We are calling on anyone who cares about midwifery education to join the Positive Midwifery Movement to continue promoting human-centred support in midwifery education and practice.
Do you still have your midwifery spark? You know the one: that feeling of motivation, meaning and joy in your work as a midwife. Maybe some days it shines brighter than others? Maybe it has been flickering recently, or become dimmed?
There are so many reasons why a midwifery spark might fade. You can probably recall moments in your own experience that have made you falter and you are not alone.
We know that student midwives come into courses full of spark and strong values. These form the foundation for the kind of midwifery that supports safe, compassionate care and positive relationships with women and families. Yet during placements, student often face challenges: navigating hierarchies, adapting to workplace cultures that may not align with their ideals, and sometimes not feeling listened to or respected themselves. These experiences can dim that spark.
When students feel supported, however, they carry this spark with them into professional practice. So what can we all do to help student midwives keep their spark alive?
This was the question the Positive Midwifery Project sought to explore.
What is The Positive Midwifery Project?
The six-month Positive Midwifery Project was supported by a Humanising Care Fellowship, funded by The Point of Care Foundation. It brought together a collaborative group of students, practice supervisors, educators, policy leaders and those who care about midwifery education, to explore what helps students thrive, particularly in practice learning placements.
Learning from what’s going right
Much of the improvement work in maternity services focuses on learning from what’s gone wrong. This vital work is reflected in the recent safety inquiries, the work of MNSI, MBRRACE and regulatory reviews of Fitness to Practice. While this focus is crucial, there is also learning to be gained from what is going right.
Through in-person workshops with cohorts of students, collaborator group discussions and a national survey, we asked students, Practice Supervisors, Practice Assessors and Midwifery Lecturers to share examples of great support. From this insight, we are now developing a set of ‘top tips’ for both students and Practice Supervisors on how to help keep that midwifery spark alive.
Working with positive examples helped to spread good practice but also had a positive impact on the project collaborators themselves, bringing a welcome warmth, optimism and energy to our discussions.
What Students Told Us
When we asked students who they might like to thank for the support they had received, they responded with gratitude:
“Thank you for including me. For making me feel part of the team.”
“Thank you for encouraging me when I doubted myself.”
“Thank you for making me a cup of tea and sitting with me after a difficult birth.”
“Thank you for being kind.”
Their “thank-yous” weren’t only about the formal teaching they received. Instead, they wanted to highlight the importance of how they were treated as people. Simple, human acts like being greeted by name or being allowed to make mistakes without fear, helped to support their confidence:
“One moment that stuck in my mind was when my Practice Assessor asked me to go and look after the woman in a room myself. She just looked at me and said “on you go: I trust you”. And in that moment, it was this magical spark that ignited. “Okay!” I thought. “Well, I trust you and you trust me, so I trust me!”. Off I go and off I went”. (Student Midwife)
The kinds of attention students valued most were echoed by Practice Supervisors, Practice Assessors and Lecturers too. They described small, but powerful gestures: being included in the coffee order; being spoken to warmly, and how these can transform students’ confidence.
Whilst students spoke about good Practice Supervisors as being positive, curious, and reminding them why they chose midwifery in the first place, this Practice Supervisor showed how this support was in fact mutual:
“I love being able to give them the knowledge I wish I had been taught, as I did not have the best placement experiences. It’s also fun to be working with someone and it helps the day go in faster when you have some help. It keeps my midwifery spark alive when I have an enthusiastic student as it reminds me of how I was when I started and the reasons why I became a midwife in the first place. (…) Working with students makes me feel like I’m a good midwife again, because it’s easy to be plagued by self-doubt in the current NHS climate. Public opinion of us is pretty demoralising sometimes, plus the way we are expected to carry out a ridiculous workload with no thanks for getting through it, just criticism when something is missed. Students remind me that I can actually contribute something good by teaching them”. (Practice Supervisor)
The power of relationships
At its heart, this project has been all about what happens when we put humans back at the centre of the healthcare system. This might seem a bit daft, being as healthcare is all about people; but often our desire to make our systems more efficient or cost-effective, or our preoccupations with how things should happen, rather than why (or for whom) can lead us to design them to suit the process rather than the people.
What we have seen during this project, is that it’s these human relationships that keep people’s spark alive, and the spark that maintains positive, supportive relationships.
What’s next?
As the Positive Midwifery Project draws to a close, we’re excited to launch the Positive Midwifery Movement: a new community of practice that is taking this work forward.
✨ How can we work together to protect that spark?
✨ How can we nurture students’ spark so they can grow into confident, compassionate and positive midwives?
If these questions matter to you, we’d love to have you with us.
You can join us by visiting www.positivemidwiferymovement.com or emailing [email protected] to join the mailing list.
The Positive Midwifery Movement is just getting started but it only takes a spark to inspire positive change.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the Positive Midwifery Project Collaborator Group for their guidance, insight and spark that has driven this work.
This project was funded by a Humanising Care Fellowship from The Point of Care Foundation. Thank you too to the Nursing and Midwifery Council for supporting my absence during this secondment.
You can find out more about The Positive Midwifery Project at www.bit.ly/positivemidwifery.
Dr Juliet Rayment
Humanising Care Fellow, The Point of Care Foundation; Strategy Manager, NMC
Corresponding address: [email protected]