Kathleen Maki

This role involves maintaining a proactive clinical presence and promoting midwifery standards while reinforcing Te Tiriti o Waitangi within maternity services. This is achieved through teaching, role modeling, and leading by example, with a focus on enhancing advanced midwifery practice and prioritising the outcomes for whānau Māori. Participation in maternity clinical governance meetings, application of critical reasoning to practice issues, and encouragement of adherence to professional standards are also key responsibilities. Additionally, effective management and delegation within the healthcare team, complaint handling, conflict resolution, and continual quality improvement are essential aspects of the role, ensuring safe, legal, effective, and culturally sensitive midwifery practice.

Furthermore, the role entails active involvement in quality improvement planning, including equity-focused initiatives, as well as being available for emergency issues after hours. Responsibility for workplace health and safety, understanding budgetary constraints, and collaborating with finance teams to monitor performance against budget are also important facets of the position. Overall, the role requires a commitment to excellence in service delivery, continual learning, and the promotion of a safe and supportive environment for hapū whānau and kaimahi within the service.

The Secretary is the chief administrator office for the Canterbury & West Coast Region of NZCOM. The role co-coordinates links between members, the committee and outside agencies.

The role of the Midwife Clinical Coach is pivotal in providing hands-on clinical education within the hospital, showcasing effective, evidence-informed, and culturally safe practices. They collaborate closely with new graduate midwives, newcomers to the maternity service, and midwives on the 'Return to Practice' Programme, aiding their transition to confident practitioners or assisting those needing to refresh their skills. Working in a supernumerary capacity, they offer timely support, fostering a learning environment that promotes manaaki (care) and skill development while mitigating staff stress and enhancing retention. This role plays a crucial part in nurturing a competent and resilient midwifery workforce, ensuring high-quality care for hapū individuals and their whānau

Te Ara o Hine - Tapu Ora is a Manatū Hauora initiative aimed at recruiting, retaining, and graduating more Māori and Pacific midwives into the community. Tapu Ora aligns with 'Ola Manuia: The Pacific Health and Wellbeing Action Plan. As part of the initiative, the schools of midwifery have each implemented liaison roles to provide close support within the schools for midwifery students. Efforts are directed towards being culturally responsive, while identifying and mitigating barriers to enable their success to become midwives.

This role involves engaging with ākonga enroled in studying midwifery This includes designing and planning learning content, assessments, feedback, teaching both face-to-face and online, and ensuring effective planning, preparation, and organisation for all learning situations so that ākonga understand what is expected of them. It is crucial that each learning environment motivates ākonga to learn by adopting a variety of appropriate teaching and learning strategies and effectively utilises technology and media. As a small academic team, collegiality, collaboration, and sharing of practices are essential for delivering the overall curriculum. Developing an understanding of pedagogy and scholarly approaches to teaching and learning supports curriculum design and the transfer of research knowledge.

CDHB is the second-largest DHB in Aotearoa, providing maternity services for 12.8% of New Zealand's population. Approximately 82% of births within the CDHB area occur at Christchurch Women's Hospital, a tertiary level hospital. In my role, I have worked within the birthing suite, maternity and outpatient wards, providing intrapartum care as well as antenatal and postnatal care. This dynamic working environment emphasises collaboration and relies on a multidisciplinary approach. Within this bustling tertiary care facility, the role of the midwife is paramount in providing care to hapū whānau. This role necessitates an understanding of the importance of coordination between core services, LMC community midwives, multidisciplinary teams, and agencies to ensure optimal and appropriate maternity care is provided to whānau.

This was a contracted role to provide education and facilitation on behlaf of the New Zealand College of Midwives, specifically the Midwifery First Year of Practice (MFYP) workshops aimed at midwives participating in the programme. The role required a thorough understanding of the MFYP program and its requirements, as well as awareness of the diverse contextual settings graduates may work within and national maternity issues impacting service provision. Effective facilitation of small and large groups of midwives, along with clear communication of program intentions and content, were essential skills for this role.

This role involved disseminating evidence-based maternity information and addressing contemporary maternity public health issues. Key objectives included enhancing participant accessibility and engagement, especially for whānau Māori and Pacific. Delivery of class content aimed to promote participant engagement while providing informative sessions. This required adapting teaching plans to accommodate a diverse population, adhering to DHB guidelines, and possessing a thorough understanding of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum adaptation and physiology.

Historically, the Community Midwifery Team (CMT) was established in response to Obstetric Lead Maternity Carers needing midwifery services. Over time, its scope expanded to provide care to whānau unable to find an LMC midwife, those facing highly complex social situations, providing midwifery input in to high-risk obstetric clinics and women outside the Wellington region needing postnatal care for a pēpi admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit. While collaboration with multidisciplinary practitioners is essential to this role, the CMT remains primarily midwifery-led, with care tailored around hapū whānau

Capital and Coast DHB (CCDHB) encompasses Wellington, Porirua, and Kapiti Regions, contributing to 6.0% of New Zealand's births, ranking it as the sixth largest DHB in the country. The DHB operates a tertiary unit at Wellington Hospital along with two primary maternity units. In my capacity as a core midwife, I provided midwifery care and education at Wellington Regional Hospital, catering to wāhine and their whānau across the spectrum of my midwifery scope, including primary, secondary, and tertiary care

In this role, I supported hapū whānau across a diverse range of settings, from rural areas such as Pahiatua, Tararua, and Te Waiora districts, to semi-rural communities like Feilding, and the urban center of Palmerston North. Providing midwifery care, ranging from homebirth to secondary level care, I worked within two interdependent midwifery practices, both dedicated to delivering wahine and whānau-centred care. Given the significant variation in the demographic profile of the women I cared for, adapting my midwifery approach to ensure it was both whānau centered and appropriate was essential. Notably, I achieved a 32% homebirth rate, an aspect of care I found particularly fulfilling.

Palmerston North Hospital is a secondary maternity facility, equipped with eight birthing beds and twenty-two antenatal/postnatal beds. In this role, I provided care to whānau requiring secondary or primary level maternity services. My responsibilities spanned across my scope of practice, encompassing care in the antenatal/postnatal wards, birthing suite, and the day assessment unit