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Introducing: The Positive Midwifery Movement!

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Introducing: The Positive Midwifery Movement!

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The Positive Midwifery Project may be coming to an end, but we're delighted to announce the launch of The Positive Midwifery Movement.

With this Community of Practice we are setting our sights on the future. We are calling on all those passionate about midwifery education - students, practice supervisors, assessors, educators, and more - to help carry forward the work we have started here.

✨ How can we work together to support student midwives?

✨ How can we make sure they nurture their spark so they can grow into confident, compassionate and positive midwives.

We are about to take our first steps and if you would like to join us, you're very very welcome.

Email hello@positivemidwiferymovement.com to join the mailing list and keep an eye on our webpage at www.positivemidwiferymovement.com as we grow.

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Newsletter #4: Endings and beginnings - What's next?

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Newsletter #4: Endings and beginnings - What's next?

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Today is the last day of my Humanising Care Fellowship. For the last six months I have had the privilege of being supported by The Point of Care Foundation to explore what happens when we put humans at the centre of the healthcare system. This might seem a bit daft, being as healthcare is all about humans, but very 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.

This project has held people at its heart. I have also tried to uphold the principles of collaboration, transparency and to focus on the positive: what we can learn from what is going right, rather than entirely on what is going wrong.

The Positive Midwifery Project as it is now, is coming to an end, but we hope you will join us on our next adventure as The Positive Midwifery Movement.

So for now, thank you to the Collaborator Group, who trusted in me and this idea and have brought such a lot of joy and spark to our work together. Thank you to the NMC for supporting my absence from my day job, and especially to The Point of Care Foundation and my fellow Fellows, Alison and Sinead, for all their financial, practical and emotional support and for helping to sew the seed for what comes next.

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In February, we published a survey, asking for student midwives, Practice Supervisors, Assessors and Lecturers to share their experiences. We wanted to know what already works well so we could gather those gems of good practice and share them.

The questions asked things like 'what is the single most important thing Practice Supervisors can do to keep students' spark alive?'; 'if you could thank one person at work for support during your placements, what would you thank them for?' and 'what do you love most about working with students?'.

We had a fantastic response, with 250 people taking the time to share their thoughts about how those sparks are already being nurtured. We heard from 169 student midwives, 11 NQMs, 41 Supervisors and Assessors and 19 midwifery lecturers, from all over the UK. Whilst most of the students were studying for 3 or 4 year BSc in Midwifery courses, we also heard from smaller numbers working towards MScs, Shortened Programmes and Midwifery Degree Apprenticeships.

We'll be using the stories we heard to develop two 'top tips' style documents: one from students, for students, and another aimed at Practice Supervisors.

But for now, Newsletter #4 will share some of what people told us.

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Newsletter #4: What did you tell us? Students aren't just students.

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Newsletter #4: What did you tell us? Students aren't just students.

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What was really striking in the responses to the survey was the number of students (83% of them, in fact) who were living with challenges in the rest of their lives that made their experience of placement more difficult. And 40% of people were dealing with two or more, 17% with three or more and 2% with four or more of these. This wasn't intended to be a representative sample from all students across the country, but it is a good illustration of why students were so grateful to Supervisors for treating them as individuals and whole people:

"I would thank my Supervisor for treating me as a person; using my name, treating me as an adult, and genuinely contributing to my learning".

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Practice Supervisors, Practice Assessors and Midwifery Lecturers (n=57) talk about what they love most about working with students. 

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Newsletter #4: What did you tell us? You love working with students

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Newsletter #4: What did you tell us? You love working with students

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“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.” (Practice Supervisor, Scotland)

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What do you love about working with students

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Newsletter #4: What did you tell us? Supporting relationships is just as important as sharing skills 

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Newsletter #4: What did you tell us? Supporting relationships is just as important as sharing skills 

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Between them, Practice Supervisors, Practice Assessors and Midwifery Lecturers have a lot of experience of what makes great support for students, even if it's not always easy to do it in practice. We wanted to collect these gems of experience so we asked them what was the most important thing Practice Supervisors could do to support students to keep their spark alive.

Then I asked some students to help make sense of them. Armed with print outs of the Practice Supervisors, Practice Assessors and Lecturers responses, a pair of scissors, post-it notes and a Pritt-stick, two cohorts of Year 1 and Year 3 student midwives each did an analog thematic analysis. They teased out the themes, sticking the responses on the wall in groups.

In doing this they grouped the responses into four overarching categories which you can see in the illustration. You can see a more detailed version here.

What we heard from the survey responses was that supporting student midwives isn’t just about teaching clinical skills, it’s about helping them become confident, compassionate practitioners. What matters most is being present, kind, and human.

Practice Supervisors believe that students value Supervisors who learn their names, understand where they are in their training, and tailor their guidance to individual needs.

A good Practice Supervisor listens. They create space for honest conversations, offer constructive feedback, and aren’t afraid to acknowledge the tough days. They share their passion for the work even when it’s hard.

Practice Supervisors, Assessors and Lecturers believe that students thrive when they’re made to feel part of the team. This happens through small acts: being included in the coffee order; being spoken to with warmth, and this can transform confidence. Supervisors who remain positive, curious, and kind remind students why they chose midwifery in the first place.

Above all, they know that students want to learn, to ask questions, to be guided through mistakes, and to grow. The supervisors who offer encouragement, honesty, and a spark of joy are those who are remembered and we can see that in those people that the students chose to thank too.

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Summary - What is the single most important thing Practice Supervisors can do to help students keep their spark alive

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Newsletter #4: What did you tell us? Students had a lot they wanted to say 'thank you' for.

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Newsletter #4: What did you tell us? Students had a lot they wanted to say 'thank you' for.

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We asked students about what goes well in placements. What would they like to thank people for? What made a difference?

They had a lot to share.

The students we heard from wanted to thank supervisors who believed in them, often when they did not believe in themselves. Those who didn’t let them give up. And those who encouraged them by listening and trusting them.

Support showed up in the small things: using a student’s name, “including me. Making me feel part of the team, and being encouraging when I doubt myself”.

They wanted to thank people, crucially, for kindness. Not every student experienced kindness, but when they did, they remembered:

“I would thank the midwife that made me a cup of tea and sat down with me after a difficult delivery and asked how I was”.

Yes, students wanted to be taught, but they also wanted to be recognised and valued, not treated as “the student,” but as a person in their own right:

“I would thank them for being kind. Not every supervisor is kind. Kindness to me looks like: introducing themselves, inviting me into their space and making me feel welcome, using my name and not just “the student” or even worse “my student” when they offer me out for other tasks”.

Students appreciated supervisors who were willing to let them learn by doing, knowing when to step in and when to step back and providing opportunities for them to practice practical skills. Supervisors who accepted that mistakes are part of the process, not personal failures, made a big positive impact:

“Being willing to not make me feel like an idiot when I've asked questions. Accept that I'm learning and to just be vulnerable and say sometimes that they don't know or that they had to learn later on and were not expected to know everything.”

“Not using patronising language such as: ‘You're a 3rd year; you should know this’ (...). By not using this language, it made me feel unjudged and also safe that my practice was still practice, and that I still had time to learn the things I didn't know.”

And, alongside helping them learn from mistakes, students really appreciated those that took the time to notice “the small things that I have achieved or the individual ways that I am doing a good job.”

So, what do student midwives want from their Practice Supervisors? Encouragement. Patience. A bit of bravery in letting go. And a role model: those who show, simply through their ordinary, everyday work that it’s possible to be the kind of midwife a student hopes to become:

“My first-year birthing centre supervisor. Her compassion towards women and passion for the dynamic event of birth was/is admirable.”

"That drives me forward because I know I'm learning from the best.”

We have produced three posters, sharing more about what students thought made great Practice Supervision. You can see them here.

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Newsletter #4: What did you tell us? You can never have enough pens.

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Newsletter #4: What did you tell us? You can never have enough pens.

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In the survey we asked students what helps them thrive on placement: items? attitudes? people? spaces? These word clouds give you a taste.

One student had a vision:

“I want a wise book, where previous student midwives have written their words of advice during difficult times. The book would show students there is light at the end; it's worth pushing through”.

Maybe one day you'll write that book, but for now, we are going to make a small start. The Project Collaborator Group are putting the finishing touches to two guides: one for students and one for practice supervisors. From students to students and from students and their supporters for Practice Supervisors, these 'top tips' on how to keep your spark alive, will bring together examples of what we have heard already works well in practice learning.

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Newsletter #3: TL;DR? Listen to this instead

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Newsletter #3: TL;DR? Listen to this instead

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Welcome to the Positive Midwifery Project

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Welcome to the Positive Midwifery Project

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Thanks for dropping in! If this is your first visit, you can find out more about the project by browsing through the previous newsletter articles. These share small snippets of ongoing work.

There's more about the project in general here

There's more about who is in the collaborative group here

You can find out about The Point of Care Foundation here

And the Humanising Care Fellowships and Fellows here

Our Community of Practice launch event on 20th March is now fully booked, but email juliet.rayment@pointofcarefoundation.org.uk to join the mailing list to be kept up to date with future meetings and events.

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Newsletter #3: What is that midwifery spark?

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Newsletter #3: What is that midwifery spark?

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This project has been all about keeping the midwifery spark alive. But what is that spark? Here are some thoughts from the project collaborator group. What about you? What is your midwifery 'spark'?

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Newsletter #3: Year 1 student midwives: When will you know you're a midwife?

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Newsletter #3: Year 1 student midwives: When will you know you're a midwife?

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As part of this project, we have been working with two cohorts of student midwives, exploring their understanding of the midwifery spark and what being a midwife means to them. When we first spoke to the Year 1 students, they had just completed their initial practice learning placement. This experience had clearly energised and excited them, yet they were very aware of the long journey ahead to become fully-fledged midwives.

When asked 'when will you know you're a midwife?', their responses centred on learning to behave and talk like a qualified midwife. They also emphasised the importance of developing confidence in their knowledge and skills, which seemed long way off at this early stage of their education.

Their theoretical education at university provided crucial context, helping them understand "why it matters".

However, it was the practice learning that allowed them to embody this knowledge and begin to discover their own professional values by observing midwives they admired, in action. One student described how practice learning helped ignite their midwifery spark:

"You need the lived experience on placement to really know your midwifery identity. I thought community midwifery was where my heart is, but after one week on Delivery Suite, I thought maybe this is where I am meant to be! Maybe I'm supposed to work in a hospital! It's only through exposure to placement do you know and shape who you want to be"

This experience highlights the transformative power of practical placements in shaping a student midwife's professional identity and the personal spark that keeps them going.

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Newsletter #3: Year 3 student midwives: When will you know you're a midwife?

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Newsletter #3: Year 3 student midwives: When will you know you're a midwife?

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The third-year students we spoke to had sharpened their communication skills and grown more confident in their abilities. Unlike the Year 1 students, the gap between how they spoke and behaved and how the qualified midwives around them did had narrowed. So instead of focusing on learning how to be a midwife, they were now facing a different challenge - the practical and physical objects that stood between them and qualification.

When asked how they would know they were finally a midwife, it was these tangible symbols that stood out: a blue uniform, a lanyard and fob, independent access to the drugs cupboard, an NMC PIN. These were the things that set qualified midwives apart - things the students didn’t quite have yet, but which marked a clear line between them and full membership of the profession.

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Newsletter #3: What makes a good midwife?

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Newsletter #3: What makes a good midwife?

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If this project was aiming to support students to keep their spark alive, we wanted to know what we were aiming for. We asked the student midwives, "What qualities make a good midwife?". These are the words the Year 1 cohort shared. Many of you will likely recognise them: they are qualities are at the heart of what it means to be a midwife. Which is why it can be so difficult when midwives feel unable to embody these values, whether due to systemic challenges or their personal capacity.

When we asked the Year 3 cohort the same question, they came out with similar words, but were also concerned that midwives should be 'transparent' and 'competent'. In anticipating becoming qualified midwives within the next few months, their preoccupation had shifted.

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Our launch event on 20th March is now fully booked! If you would like to join the mailing list, please email Juliet at juliet.rayment@pointofcarefoundation.org.uk

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Our launch event on 20th March is now fully booked! If you would like to join the mailing list, please email Juliet at juliet.rayment@pointofcarefoundation.org.uk

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📅 Date & Time: Thursday 20th March, 9:30 AM - 2:00 PM
📍 Location: The PPL Hub, St Saviours Wharf, 23 Mill St, London SE1 2BG
🔗 Google Maps

📌 Places are limited and registration is required: Sign up here.

Why Join Us?

Students bring something special to midwifery—a spark, a flame—fuelling motivation and enthusiasm that energises the profession. Since October 2024, The Positive Midwifery Project has brought together students, Practice Supervisors, Educators, and regulators to explore how we can nurture that spark, ensuring it thrives through practice learning and into preceptorship. Together, we have gathered inspiring examples of student support from across the country and are working to share these to help students to thrive.

Funded as part of a Humanising Care Fellowship at the Point of Care Foundation, the project is led by Dr Juliet Rayment, maternity researcher and Strategy Manager at the Nursing and Midwifery Council. You can read more about who is on the collaborative group and the work we have been doing here.

Looking ahead – Building a community

As the first phase of the project concludes in March 2025, we are setting our sights on the future. We are calling on all those passionate about midwifery education—students, practice supervisors, assessors, educators, and more—to help shape a Community of Interest to carry this work forwards.

At this gathering, we will:

1. Share insights from the first phase of the project and other current work on practice learning.

2. Collaborate on defining the future of our new community.

3. Build connections to sustain and strengthen midwifery practice learning.

☕ Tea, coffee, and lunch will be provided.
📌 Places are limited and registration is required: Sign up here

🚌 If the cost of travel prevents you from attending, support may be available. Please contact Juliet at juliet.rayment@pointofcarefoundation.org.uk.

📰 If you would like to be added to the project mailing list for project news and future events, write to Juliet at juliet.rayment@pointofcarefoundation.org.uk.

Please forward this to anyone who might be interested.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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The Positive Midwifery Project Survey is now closed. Thanks to all the 250 people who responded! 

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The Positive Midwifery Project Survey is now closed. Thanks to all the 250 people who responded! 

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✨ Calling Student Midwives, Newly Qualified Midwives, Practice Supervisors, Assessors and Midwifery Lecturers! ✨

We want to hear from you!

The Positive Midwifery Project is a collaboration between students, midwives, educators and regulators, exploring how we can all help to keep student midwives’ motivation or spark alive during practice learning.

We have developed a short survey to learn from your real-life experiences. However small, your input will help to create two short guides:

For Students: Sharing practical tips and ideas to help maintain their enthusiasm and motivation for midwifery during placements.

For Practice Supervisors: On fostering and supporting capable, compassionate student midwives.

The survey is quick and simple—just three questions, and you can respond using voice notes!

Click here to participate. The survey closes at midnight on Monday 17th February 2025.

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Newsletter #2: Listen to the newsletter!

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Newsletter #2: Listen to the newsletter!

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TL;DR? Listen to the newsletter here instead.

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Newsletter #2: Who are the project collaborator group?

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Newsletter #2: Who are the project collaborator group?

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Since the last newsletter, The Positive Midwifery Project has been delighted to welcome the following people to a project collaborator group. We had our first meeting on 6th December.

We shared what we love about our work, and our hopes for the future of the maternity services.

Kurt Lee, Student Midwife (Year 1), University of West of Scotland

Mira Waligora, Student Midwife (Year 3), University of West of Scotland

Siobhan Callaghan, Newly Qualified Midwife, Greater Glasgow and Clyde

Lisa Wyn Orhan, Midwifery Lead Practice Education Facilitator, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board

Jade Barnes, Research Midwife and Birth Centre Midwife, Bradford Teaching Hospitals

Kate Lawson, Policy Manager, Professional Standards Authority

Jacqui Williams, Senior Midwifery Advisor (Education), NMC

Naomi Wilshire, Screening Case Officer, Interim Order team and former RM, NMC

Diane Menage, Senior Lecturer in Midwifery, De Montfort University

Suma Das, Standards Development Specialist, NMC

Julie Bliss, Senior Nursing Education Advisor, NMC

Heather Bower, Head of Education, RCM

Sheena Byrom, Director, All4Maternity

Juliet Rayment, Humanising Care Fellow, Point of Care Foundation

If you'd like to get involved, email Juliet Rayment at juliet.rayment@pointofcarefoundation.org.uk

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Newsletter #2: What are our hopes for the future of maternity care?

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Newsletter #2: What are our hopes for the future of maternity care?

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In our first collaborator group meeting, we shared our hopes for the future.

These have given us a direction for this project. Whatever we do next will work towards these aims.

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Student midwives bring something extremely special to their relationships with women and families, and the care that they offer. However, these relationships are often not so easily supported once they are qualified. How that they can retain that specialness?

The desire to fit in is a natural part of joining any new environment, but for student midwives, this often means adapting to a culture that may not always align with the ideals they hold. How can they stay true to the midwife they aspire to be, rather than conforming to what they think is expected of them?

Confidence is another hurdle. Many students are not encouraged to communicate openly with colleagues, particularly senior doctors, but learning to communicate with other professionals is critical to students’ development and to patient safety.

Additionally, students often feel their voices and experiences are undervalued, especially if they bring prior career expertise. They may be dismissed or told to "know their place," sometimes even discouraged from asking questions or engaging with senior staff. How can we create a culture that listens to and respects student midwives as vital contributors to the profession?

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Newsletter #2: How can we be the change we want to see?

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Newsletter #2: How can we be the change we want to see?

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During our first collaborator group meeting, we discussed what factors we felt could have a positive impact on these challenges. This list is just a start:

More listening and being heard

Flattening the hierarchy

Emotional intelligence skills

Humanising care by being human beings first (midwives second, employees third)

Safe spaces

Positive and supportive learning from incidents

Education about thresholds for regulatory action (to reduce the fear of the regulator)

What are we going to do to help?

We’d like to contribute a guide for students, to help them to keep their sparkle or flame alive when in placement and moving into preceptorship. We’d like to make another for practice supervisors on supporting students.

These could be short pocket guides, or audio outputs, or both!

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The General Lying In Hospital, York Road, Lambeth, 1908. Image from The Wellcome Collection

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Newsletter #2: What's going to happen next?

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Newsletter #2: What's going to happen next?

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We're working to recruit more Practice Supervisors or Practice Learning Facilitators to the collaborator group.

We met with a group of Year 3 Student Midwives on 11th December to find out from them what makes a good midwife and what kind of midwife they want to be. We'll be speaking to some Year 1 Students in 2025 too.

We'll be meeting again next year with both these groups to find out what has supported them during placement and what we can learn from what currently goes well.

We are working out who else we need to hear from to find out more about examples of great practice.

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Statuette Karajà, Muséum de Toulouse, via Wikimedia Commons

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Newsletter #1: What is the Positive Midwifery Project?

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Newsletter #1: What is the Positive Midwifery Project?

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The Positive Midwifery Project (this is a working title) is a collaboration to explore what support student midwives need from those around them, so they can continue to build and maintain positive relationships with women, families, and colleagues during practice learning placements.

Over the six months of the project (ending in March 2025), we will work with students, service users, educators, practice supervisors, assessors, and regulators, to explore questions such as:

1. What defines a "good" midwife?

2. How are these ideal skills and behaviours taught and learned by students?

3. What makes it easy to be a good midwife in practice placements; and what makes it hard?

4. What practical action could clinical services, universities, and regulators take to help students build and maintain positive relationships with women, families, and colleagues?

5. In what situations can students safely speak up about unkind or unsafe practices that they see, and what can be learned from these experiences?

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Newsletter #1: You can listen to me introduce the project here.

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Newsletter #1: You can listen to me introduce the project here.

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Stephen Willats 'Living with Practical Realities', Tate Britain

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Newsletter #1: What do we want to get out of this?

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Newsletter #1: What do we want to get out of this?

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The Positive Midwifery Project will learn from real examples of positive relationships and behaviours in clinical practice — no matter how small. We want to identify effective support strategies that help nurture compassionate, capable midwives. We hope the learning will be useful for other student health professionals too.

We want to share these strategies widely, but how we do this will depend what ideas the group decides are most important and who they think should hear about them.

The format of the outputs are up for grabs: we might make a short film, or a podcast. We might put on an exhibition or hold a webinar; create a toolkit or a two-page summary.

Contact Juliet Rayment at juliet.rayment@pointofcarefoundation.org.uk to be added to the project mailing list for future newsletters.

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We are bringing together a collaborative project group to include student midwives, service users, educators, and representatives from the Professional Standards Authority, the NMC and interested academics.

The project is coordinated by Juliet Rayment as part of a Humanising Care Fellowship funded by the Point of Care Foundation and supported by the Nursing and Midwifery Council. You can contact Juliet at juliet.rayment@pointofcarefoundation.org.uk.

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The Point of Care Foundation announces Humanising Care Fellowships - Point of Care Foundation

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We are delighted to announce that Alison Convey, Sinead Rothrie and Juliet Rayment have been awarded Humanising Care Fellowships. Starting in October 2024, Fellows will work for six months with the Point of Care team, embarking on unique projects to improve the way health and care services are delivered. The Fellows’ projects will explore diverse […]

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Absolutely! We’d love to hear from you. There are a currently two main ways to get involved:

1. If you are a student midwife, recent graduate or have a professional or personal interest in the questions we’re asking, get in touch to find out more about our collaborative project group.

2. If you’d like to keep in touch with the project as it progresses, sign up to the mailing list for newsletters and other updates.

To find out more, or be added to the mailing list, contact Juliet Rayment at juliet.rayment@pointofcarefoundation.org.uk