Full for now.

A pilot of a new project called ‘Midwifery Safe House’.

I woke today to the BBC headline ‘NHS in England faces worst staffing crisis in history’.

500 midwives have left the service between March 2021-22. We have a 30% student attrition rate. This is making me take a step forward with the project I’ve been sitting on. The working title is ‘Midwifery Safe House’.

The fear around discussing midwifery is palpable. This is insane - right now is no time to be alone. We all have answers and we could be doing a lot better if we share them, and this idea has been a long time brewing but enough is enough.

This is a service which takes place via hour-long group Zoom sessions. In these sessions, we address a difficult midwifery situation. These situations come from anonymous submissions and on the Zoom call, we will hear from the group and hope to come to helpful conclusions. I’m running this as PWYC (Pay What You Can), because it’s a trial to see if I can get it to work. And like every other midwife would be, I’m scared. However, I’ve gone through all of the NMC social media guidance and I can’t see that we’re doing anything wrong. Actually, I think we’re doing everything right.

This session will be Thursday 28th June at 11am. This is a pilot session, I’ll take our experiences from this session back to the expert psychotherapists and other NHS staff I’ve been consulting with to develop the idea further. But right now I need your help and involvement.

What Safe House is:

A place to discuss where things are broken 

A place to learn to trust your own instincts

A place to find your way to your own kind of intelligence

A place for a head and gut check

A place to check if your worries are normal

A place for student midwives and qualified midwives to problem solve

A place to discuss how to handle the interpersonal dynamics of midwifery 

A place to think about career aspirations

A place to think about advocacy

A place to story-tell

A place to ask advice about projects or initiatives 

A place to give and receive empathy

A place to share what you’re feeling

A place to discharge panic and anxiety about the role (I think this is very important)

A place to try and make open discussion part of our culture

A place for staying close to each other

A place to work out how to hold yourself as a midwife

What it’s not:

Counselling/Psychotherapy

A place to share something identifiable about a patient or client you have worked with - this is a big one, to stay safe doing this work, we have to be so careful about this

A place to get help for more personal challenges like addiction, illness, or anything where counselling/psychotherapy/support from your GP might be a better idea (also, if you are at all identifiable and reveal something that causes concern, we would need to escalate that. I know this sounds harsh but we have to be realistic about every eventuality.)

Somewhere to whistleblow. If you have concerns, we will ask you to report any safety issues via an incident report, talk to a senior member of your trust, or if you can’t do these, report to the CQC (you can whistleblow anonymously if you need to). But this is not a place to mention universities, trusts, hospitals or units, individual staff members, or anything else that should be reported via official means.

Rules:

The one rule: do not share anything you wouldn’t be happy to be repeated

So how on earth do we make this work? Well, one way is to story tell but change identifiable features. This can be like making stock where you put ingredients into water and wait for all of the goodness to leach out. The stock that’s left has identifiable flavours but none of its original ingredients. So what you say is true and adds to the conversation but is not verbatim as it happened. 

You can also talk about other midwives, using no names, and what they did to react well in hard situations. Another way to contribute is to share information from writers and researchers. Or, if you think you have some good advice from your own practice that is safe and good to share, go ahead and share it.

You can choose:

To have your camera on or off

To have an alternative name to protect your identity (see how to do this on Zoom here)

To type into the zoom box instead of speaking

I will be recording because, let’s face it, anyone on the call could be doing this also. And it seems like the right thing to do to make a record of these conversations.

But...also...I do need some people to come and talk with me. It can’t just be me up there because I don’t have all the answers! So please come and join in; even if you give hypothetical answers to hypothetical scenarios and agree sometimes you have had intense feelings on shift, that is enough.

NB:

By signing up you agree to all of the above.

This session is currently available for student midwives who have completed at least a little placement (even if you are taking a break from the course, or have left, your experience means I would still love you to attend) and qualified midwives (even if your registration has lapsed or you are not currently working, you are still very welcome to join us).

Pay What You Can - choose your amount below.

Do drop me a line on ellie@midwifediaries.com with any questions.

Our First Anonymous Question

'I feel entirely pathetic even writing this, but what do you do when your confidence has been completely shattered by one midwife, and it leaves you feeling like you never want to go back? I had a shift last night where the midwife was quite brutal and not in a constructive kind of way, in a completely soul-destroying, personal attack kind of way.

My feedback throughout the rest of placement has been incredible, and I headed towards finishing the first year feeling really proud of myself, but now I feel like there isn't a place for me in midwifery and I absolutely cannot do this. The idea of seeing this midwife or working with this midwife again gives me completely anxiety but making a complaint about her and then seeing her again is even worse. I was left in a position where after only a handful of deliveries, she expected me to do the whole thing on my own, kept leaving the room and then blamed me for a big tear. I felt utterly lost and like a duck out of water.

I have cried all day feeling like I don't know what to do anymore, and I’m hoping someone else may have been in a similar position and has carried on without it completely knocking your confidence.'