Delivering continuity of midwifery care to Queensland women

Professional development plan
Drafting a professional development plan is a personal process, essential to each midwife’s
practice. The MidPLUS program (ACM) and Queensland Health through various internal
professional development processes at a local level, have a range of tools to assist
midwives. Midwives can undertake this process independently or within their employment.
A professional development plan requires the midwife to:
• identify areas for professional development
• formalise these into learning needs when necessary
• look at the way the midwife learns best
• identify ways that the midwife can use their preferred learning method to fill the gaps in
their professional development
• document a process for undertaking professional development and a timeline to do so
• show how learning will be evaluated.
Midwives should have flexibility to self-identify their professional development plan or goals
for the first twelve months of working in continuity of care. However it is important that they
focus on gaining the full repertoire of skills required to work autonomously in a continuity
model.
Upskilling
After assessment and professional development planning, the next stage of capacity
building is the upskilling of the midwives who will provide midwifery care.
Midwives working within continuity of care models need to have had sufficient recent
exposure to a wide variety of clinical situations. Multidisciplinary emergency skills activities
such as MaCRM or ALSO and neonatal resuscitation programs provide the midwife with
opportunities to practice skills and gain confidence.
There are a range of professional development activities provided by professional bodies
such as the Australian College of Midwives Queensland Branch and a range of private
organisations which may assist in upskilling.
Midwives preparing for continuity of care models may benefit from spending time working in
an existing continuity of care model. An alternative is to have an experienced continuity of
care midwife working within the new group practice. This transitioning process can provide
upskilling in clinical and non-clinical skills.
Upskilling of midwives can also include informal processes where midwives spend time
engaging with consumers and consumer organisations or time where midwives review
available resources such as DVDs or other web based resources on relevant areas, such as
physiological birth.
The next stage, after midwives have gained the skills required, is for them to build
confidence in their practice and their ability to be responsible for decision making and for
coordinating care. This confidence may take some time to develop after they commence
working in the model.
A guide to implementation
59