gms | German Medical Science

Background: The demand for out-of-hospital midwifery practice placements is steadily increasing. Freelance midwives are uncertain how to apply labor law aspects and other influencing criteria of practice guidance into their daily work in order to ensure high-quality training and therefore some do not offer their expertise for practical training. After taking stock of the challenges of practical guidance in everyday midwifery work, a needs analysis was conducted. Based on these identified needs, a further training project was developed, which will be presented here.

Aim/question: The aim of this training project is to support freelance midwives in successfully incorporating legal requirements, structural framework conditions, as well as administrative and professional-pedagogical aspects of practical guidance into their complexity of their work processes. This increases the motivation to offer a work placement and to guarantee high-quality practice guidance.

Method: The further training measure deals specifically with the requirements in non-clinical midwifery work. The focus is on the attributes of practical guidance, which are often contrary to everyday freelance practice, such as occupational health and safety, working time requirements, organizational framework conditions and their effects on quality management (QM). The introductory theoretical part consisting of impulse lectures and an inventory of the individual challenges is supplemented by a practical part. In this, tasks are worked on in a combination of small group work, self-reflection and collegial counselling, as well as practical exercises. In this way, an effective learning goal is achieved and learning success is ensured.

Relevancy: Only with sufficient and high-quality practice guidance will the practical training of midwifery students be assured and competitive. In order to increase the proportion of midwives who train, their obstacles and challenges must be seen and worked through. This training will provide a platform for freelancers to work together to develop and share solutions. The midwives need security and self-confidence to face the task of training. In addition, there are starting points for the further development of the training, as well as aspects that are of interest for the professional-political fields of work of the authors.

Recommendation: The evaluation of the training showed very positive results and led to the realisation that this type of training should be explicitly extended to the clinical setting. The first steps in this direction have already been worked out.

Each individual training measure is planned as a one-day event. Participants are informed in advance about the content, objectives and schedule of the event. They pay an appropriate participation fee and take part in the measure voluntarily. Participants may skip tasks or exercises for individual reasons without being prevented from further participation. If they wish, they can discontinue the training at any time. You will receive checklists and a script that you can use to work through the content of the training and make it useful for yourself.

Ethics and conflicts of interest: A vote on ethics was not necessary. The research was financed by own resources. The training events were financed by participation fees. There are no conflicts of interest.