This panel is hosted by ACM Chief Midwife, Alison Weatherstone and features Panelists Rakime Elmir and Helen Rogers.

Panelists
Dr Rakime Elmir is a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director Clinical Education Midwifery. Rakime is a registered midwife with 20 years’ experience as a clinician, academic and researcher. Rakime has successfully led a number of research projects as CI on birth trauma and the psychosocial impact on mothers, fathers and midwives using qualitative and mixed methods research designs. She has a particular interest in father inclusive and responsive maternity care and cultural sensitive practices. Rakime was the creator of the first national university branded Hijab to form part of clinical uniform for Muslim students. Her work has been broadcasted in printed media, radio, and journals at international, national and local levels.

Helen Rogers is a registered nurse/midwife with 25 years’ experience working in Australia, the UK, South Sudan and Sri Lanka with Medecins Sans Frontieres, and Sudan with the World Health Organisation.
Helen’s current role as the Early Parenting Program Coordinator in South Eastern Sydney Local Health District, is focused on addressing inequities in access to maternity, and child health services across the First 2000 Days.
In this role, Helen manages the Cross Cultural Workers in Maternity and Child & Family Health Services model of care. This model supports women and families from migrant and refugee background on their pregnancy and early parenting journey and is also the topic of Helen’s current part-time PhD. The research aims to evaluate the CCW Service in terms of effectiveness and acceptability from the perspective of women, their partner, service providers, and impact on maternal and infant health outcomes.

Georgia Griffin is a nurse midwife researcher. Her clinical experience motivates her to work in partnership with women, seeking out opportunities to contribute to research exploring and addressing health inequities shaped by culture, gender, language, health literacy and migration. She works on midwife and nurse-led research teams at the Women and Newborn Health Service in Western Australia. In this capacity, she has been awarded grant funding to lead a novel evaluation of cross-cultural communication within the health service. She is also currently completing a PhD (Public Health), exploring the health information experiences of women of refugee background from Myanmar living in Western Australia and co-designing service and policy recommendations with women.