Building sustainable midwifery associations: Application of an evidence-informed framework for midwifery professional association strengthening

There is a severe shortage of midwives in Canada and globally. As a result, there is a large unmet need for sexual and reproductive healthcare in communities. Midwifery associations are an example of largely women led civil society organizations that play a critical role in improving the profession and supporting sexual and reproductive health and rights. From our first Mitacs project, we were able to generate theory and a conceptual framework on building strong midwifery associations, arguing that they are an essential component to create formal quality midwifery education systems and support midwifery regulation and accreditation. We seek to continue our research collaboration with Canadian Assocaition of Midwiaves (CAM) in order to: 1) expand the evidence for, and CAM’s knowledge of, best practices in midwifery association strengthening; 2) apply the evidence to CAM’s advocacy and decisionmaking; and 3) support internal and external knowledge translation of findings. Our overarching objective is to mobilize and apply our new knowledge on midwifery association strengthening to improve CAM national and international programming. Specifically we aim to explore the appropriateness and responsiveness of our framework in multiple country contexts.

Faculty Supervisor:

Liz Darling;Beth Murray-Davis;Karyn Kaufman

Student:

Cristina A Mattison;Kirsty Bourret

Partner:

Canadian Association of Midwives

Discipline:

Other

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

McMaster University