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Liz Wilkes

Liz Wilkes commenced in the role on Chief Midwife Officer on 26 February 2024. Liz has 29 years of experience as a registered midwife, as well as experience in significant leadership roles, including leading the largest private midwifery organisation in Australia (My Midwives). She is a Board Member of the Australian College of Midwives and holds an adjunct position with Charles Darwin University.

As Queensland’s Chief Midwife Officer, Liz supports Queensland Health to deliver on providing midwifery leadership, leading maternity reforms and strengthening maternity services across the state, especially those in rural and regional communities, and building a skilled and sustainable midwifery workforce pipeline. This will ensure Queensland women and their babies receive the highest quality, safe, culturally appropriate, woman-centred midwifery care.

Karen Hollindale

Originally trained and working as paediatric nurse, Karen switched her career to become a registered midwife in 2001 to follow her passion to care for women and babies throughout the continuum of pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. Which also in turn also led Karen into Midwifery Private Practice some 12 years ago, starting her own private practice. In 2015 Karen became a director of My Midwives - Australia’s largest Private Midwifery Practice where in 2020 she took on the role of Clinical Midwifery Manager for the My Midwives and BiOC (Birthing in Our Community) partnership team and most recently in 2023 stepping into the Managing Director role for My Midwives.

Karen believes that midwifery provides the opportunity to empower women about their potential to immerse themselves in their birthing journey, and enables them to make informed choices best suited to themselves and their families needs. As midwives, Karen believes we should be mindful, respectful, and supportive of the dynamic changes that new life brings to the family unit, whilst still being in awe of the miracle of birth.

Billie Bradford

Billie Bradford is a Senior Research Fellow in the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Monash University in Melbourne. Originally from New Zealand, Dr Bradford has been a midwife since 1998 working in diverse roles from community based continuity of care through to tertiary care midwifery, perinatal mortality review, and as Expert Midwifery Advisor. Billie has focussed her career to-date on research and education and is passionate about perinatal care improvement and an optimal start to life. Billie’s ongoing research interests are in fetal movements, stillbirth prevention and midwifery care. Billie collaborates on multiple research projects to advance progress in maternity care, supervises Honours and PhD students, and is on the board of the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand and the International Stillbirth Alliance.

Kelley Lennon

I am currently the Principal Advisor for Midwifery at the Nursing and Midwifery Office (NSW Ministry of Health). At the Nursing and Midwifery Office (NaMO), I am working directly for the Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer for NSW. My role at NaMO is to provide advice primarily to the NSW Minister of Health and the Ministry about Midwifery – specifically workforce, education and professional practice issues. A large part of my role is to have an understanding of the midwifery workforce in NSW and to take a strategic approach to ensuring we have the appropriate number of midwives with the right skills to meet the needs of our women and families – I work with other branches within the Ministry, with Local Health Districts and with Education providers to achieve this. I have worked as a Registered Nurse and Midwife for 30 years and have been in various nursing and midwifery clinical and senior management positions. I have worked as a caseload midwife for many years and managed Belmont Midwifery Group Practice. I have a passion for models of care, and a strong interest in supporting and promoting midwifery leadership.

Rebekah Bowman

Bek Bowman is a registered midwife and currently the District Midwifery Manager for Southern NSW LHD. Bek is a Fellow of the ACM holding previous positions with the ACM as ACT Chair, and Executive Director. Bek is an Adjunct Professor with the University of Canberra and has presented her research at national and international forums. Bek’s previous roles include managing the Canberra Midwifery Program and implementing their public funded homebirth program. Prior to coming to NSW, Bek was the Midwifery Advisor to the ACT Chief Nurse and Midwifery Officer. Bek is passionate about evidence based care and women's rights to self-determination.

Dr Nikki Tickle

Dr Nikki Tickle, Midwife, PhD, MMid (honours), BN, Grad Dip Child and Family Health, Grad Cert Higher Education
Affiliations: Griffith University; Transforming Maternity Care Collaborative
Nikki is a Midwife and Midwifery Lecturer at Griffith University. Nikki completed her PhD on the topic of Enhancing students’ clinical learning in continuity of care experiences: A sequential multi-methods approach. Nikki would like all women to have the choice to birth respectfully, safely and locally, with a known midwife. Prior to moving into Higher Education, Nikki worked as a Midwife in Australia in a range of settings including a metropolitan tertiary hospital, a regional maternity care hospital and remote Far North Queensland. She lives on Quandamooka land (in eastern Brisbane) with her husband and two young children.

Tallulah McCarthy-Huxley

Tallulah is a third-year student midwife who, after seeing the benefits of continuing of care as a student, hopes to fulfil a graduate position in MGP next year.

Dr Jennifer Hocking

BA | BN | GradDipMid | MMid | PhD | RM RN | FACM

Jen worked as a midwife in the Australian public maternity system for 20 years before undertaking a PhD – a focused ethnographic study of lactation consultant practice which she completed in 2020. She worked as a lecturer in, and course coordinator of, the Bachelor of Midwifery program at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne) from 2018 – late 2023. Jen was awarded a fellowship of the Australian College of Midwives in 2023 for her work in the profession and the College and has been ACM Victorian branch chair since 2018. Jen commenced work at the Australian Breastfeeding Association in December 2023 as professional engagement lead and coordinator of the ABA WHO Code Advocacy project. At ABA Jen hopes to be able to draw on her knowledge and experience of both professional and peer breastfeeding support. Jen blogs at jenhock – breastfeeding, birth, mothering, midwifery

Christian Wright

Christian Wright is a nurse and midwife, maternal health researcher and educator, Clinical Council member to Northern Territory Primary Health Network, and Advisory Panel member to the Australasian Birth Trauma Association. Christian has a rich understanding of complexities of care across a diversity of cultures, with a scope of practice experience which includes metropolitan Emergency Departments and Birth Centres, Public Health and Disaster Teams, as well as isolated communities across Papua New Guinea and Arnhem Land Australia. As his presence would have been traditionally considered a cultural taboo in some of these remote places, Christian has learned to navigate and iterate his midwifery practice in response to maternal and community needs, both as a male in sacred Indigenous birthing spaces and as a clinician in rural and resource scarce environments. Listening to and advocating for the experience and voice of remote women, their partners, and their families, has become a rewarding focus of Christian's work and published research.

Tonia Mitchell & Helen Sudholz

Tonia Mitchell is currently in the role of Nurse Unit Manager at Grampians Health in Ballarat, and co-ordinates the antenatal clinics, childbirth education and domiciliary care services.
Tonia has been a midwife for 30 years and is passionate about improving antenatal care for women in our community by creating new and innovative ways of achieving increased continuity. In doing so, changing processes and systems to enable this change.

Helen is nurse midwife who after almost 20 years work in a tertiary hospital has returned closer to home to Grampians Health. Her role in maternity outpatients as an AMUM supports antenatal clinic and postnatal care in the home. She is inspired everyday by the women and families she meets.

Helen has a master’s in clinical midwifery and is an active member of the ACM.

Elizabeth Bennett

Becoming a midwife was my goal as a school leaver, over 40 years later, I can’t imagine what else I would have aspired to, that would have given me so much joy and fulfillment. The absolute privilege to have walked with women and families on their journey to parenthood has been such a special gift. The last 16 years I have been in a leadership role. Project design and implementation, management and growth of midwifery group practices in NSW an SA has been my passion. The investment in every rural women benefitting from a known, therapeutic midwifery relationship has been a wonderful environment to be working in. I have great pride in watching midwives enjoying working and developing in their full scope of practice, knowing that they are walking with women, as advocates, educators, carers and keepers of the space. Developing and nurturing our future workforce is a delight and I love learning from fresh new clinician’s. Looking forward to a few more years of growing services in the Yorke and Northern LHN before I pull up stumps… my husband, children, grandies and fur babies have given me love and courage along the way, always thankful.

6 hours of CPD