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Credentialling midwives

The credentialling process is now available for midwives in NSW. Intended primarily for midwives who will be working in caseload or other autonomous midwifery positions, the process is designed to ensure that midwives are safe practitioners, have the necessary skills to facilitate births on their responsibility and have a clear woman-centred midwifery philosophy. However, it would be a useful step for all midwives to undertake, wherever they work, and this is the ultimate aim.

The process has been set up by the NSW Midwives Association for the NSW Department of Health, who wanted to ensure that the midwives who would be staffing he new midwifery hospitals and birth centres were sufficiently experienced and competent to run the services safely. This will provide assurances for the women using these services and also the doubters (the doctors?) who are sceptical of the safety of these new maternity services.

To be credentialled, the midwife needs to go through a process of self-evaluation that involves reflecting on her skills and practise and identifying any areas where she feels further development would be useful. Having compiled a portfolio of her educational and practise development qualifications and her statistics, she also needs to select case studies that illustrate her capabilities. The portfolio is submitted to a review panel, who then interview her and assess her skills in managing complications.

Each panel is made up of two midwives and a consumer representative. One midwife supervises a skills assessment workstation and the other two conduct the interview. This “conversation” is designed to give the midwife an opportunity to explain her practise and the reflect on her achievements, strengths and future plans for professional development. The discussion is conducted in a caring, supportive atmosphere that is intended to encourage the midwife to explore her potential. It will also give her a chance to review difficult cases and to receive further guidance and ideas, or perhaps another perspective that will enable her to grow and develop.

I have been invited to be a consumer representative on these panels and yesterday was my first attendance at credentialling interviews. It was a most interesting and informative few hours for me and I came away deeply impressed by the system that has been developed, the commitment to the process that was evident and the sheer skill of the midwives whom we credentialled on the day.

This is a wonderful system that will give midwives the opportunity to show what they can do and to have this recognised and supported. I hope that many will take this path as part of their own personal growth - it will give them status and confidence and tangible proof of their midwifery qualities.

Posted by andrea at May 11, 2006 08:20 AM