The Midwifery Futures: Building the Future Australian Workforce project, funded by the NMBA sought to understand the current state of Australia's midwifery workforce and future requirements if we are to meet future demand. The final report was released in October with 32 recommendations to support policy, regulatory, industrial and educational change to enhance midwifery service provision and the determination that a 20% increase in the number of midwifery students is required. Join Professor Caroline Homer AO and Dr Zoe Bradfield from the project team as they unpack these findings and recommendations.

Presenter
Dr Zoe Bradfield holds a joint appointment as an Associate Professor of Midwifery between Curtin University and the Women and Newborns Health Service in Perth, WA. She has previously served as the WA Branch Secretary and as a Board Director and Vice President of the ACM. Zoe has more than 20 years’ experience as a midwife in rural and metropolitan settings where she has worked across several different midwifery models. Her clinical experience has fuelled her determination to see women across Australia have equity of access to midwifery continuity of care. She has a particular passion for developing clinician researchers and runs a Graduate Research Internship as well as a Senior Clinician Researcher Training Program, supporting midwives to develop research skills. Zoe’s Doctoral Thesis explored midwives’ experiences of being ‘with woman’ during labour and birth, in a variety of models, which has further galvanised her commitment to help strengthen the midwifery profession through leadership, education and research that makes a difference.

Professor Caroline Homer is Co-Program Director, Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne and Emeritus Professor of Midwifery in the Faculty of Health at UTS. In the last 2 years she has collaborated on a number of studies on the impact of COVID-19 on pregnant women, partners, midwives, midwifery students and medical doctors and more recently on COVID-19 vaccination. She is a member of the Victorian Consultative Council on Maternal and Perinatal Morbidity and Mortality and co-authored the 2020 COVID-19 Communique analysing the indirect impact of COVID-19 on pregnant women. She worked closely with the Australian College of Midwives to develop new free resources for midwives on COVID-19 vaccination.