All welcome to attend MC’s next meeting
Come along and learn more about Maternity Coalition.
Be updated on current campaigns and listen to the many ways you can help shape maternity services in Australia.
Wednesday 3rd August
10:00 – 12:30
218 Gladstone Road, Dutton Park (opp Pope St)
Please bring something to share for morning tea.
Children very welcomeor
Phone Ali 3844 3048 by 1st August
QLD Branch Meeting
All welcome to come along and learn more about Maternity Coalition.
Listen to the many ways you can help shape maternity services in Australia.
Wednesday June 15th
10:30 – 12:30
NUNDAH NEIGHBOURHOOD CENTRE
14 Station Street, Nundah
Children welcome. There is a lovely playground for them to enjoy
Please bring something to share for morning tea.
RSVP ildikokeogh@yahoo.com by 16 June
Nundah Community Centre http://www.nundahcc.org.au/
Maternity Consumer Representative Training Program
The Queensland Centre for Mothers and Babies has partnered with Health Consumers QLD and Maternity Coalition to develop, implement and evaluate a pilot training program specifically for consumer representatives of maternity services.
This pilot training program aims to support consumers to be actively involved in policy, service planning and evaluation decision-making about maternity services in Queensland. The pilot will target areas with maternity facilities planning significant maternity model of care changes.
If you’ve ever been pregnant and have an interest in improving your local pregnancy, birth and post-natal care options then you can be a part of this training program. It’s not essential, but you might also identify with one of the following characteristics:
• are currently active in a maternity consumer organisation
• have an interest in policy, planning, service delivery and evaluation of maternity services
• live in an area where your local maternity facility is planning significant changes to the way in which women receive care (model of care changes) and are interested in maternity issues – or you may want your local facility to plan some significant changes!
Training participants will not need any specific skills or qualifications. Efforts are being made to ensure a broad demographic of consumers will participate in the training.
The first training workshop is planned to take place in Brisbane on Thursday, June 30, 2011 with another workshop planned for early 2012. We’ll give participants the assistance they need to attend the workshop. Workshop participants will receive on-going support through:
• on-line resources
• networking with other consumer representatives across the state
• mentored by consumer consultants and/or other experienced consumer representatives.
How you can help
We would also like you all to spread the word about this project in the following ways:
For consumers:
Let fellow consumers and consumer groups know that they can access this training.
Register your interest in participating in this training. Call 07 3346 3069 or email consumerconsultantali@gmail.com
If you’re an experienced consumer representative and would like to support and mentor another person, please call or email us on the contact details above.
For maternity workers:
Keep an eye out for consumers who might be interested in consumer representation and this training program.
Contact Health Consumers QLD for advice and support to facilitate a positive relationship with your consumer representatives. Ph: 1800 613 251 or 32340611
For more information contact:
Queensland Centre for Mothers and Babies
Ali Gaffney, Bec Jenkinson or Joanne Smethurst
Ph: 07 3346 3069
Hi Everyone
Australian College of Midwives Queensland Branch is delighted to invite you all to attend our International Day of the Midwife 5km celebratory walk.
Midwives and their supporters around the world are walking to raise awareness of global inequalities in maternal and newborn health.
On 5th May 2011 the Australian College of Midwives Queensland Branch (ACMQ) will lead midwives and mothers in a 5 km walk from Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) to Mater Mothers Hospital to mark International Day of the Midwife 2011. Over 340,000 women die each year, with millions more suffering infection and disability, as a result of preventable maternal causes. The International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) is committed to reducing inequality, through greater access to essential midwifery care worldwide, particularly in developing countries where 90% of maternal deaths occur.
Here in Australia Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are almost three times more likely to die while pregnant, during labour and up to six weeks after giving birth than non-indigenous women. We want to see all Indigenous mothers and babies accessing safe maternity care through increased Government commitment to culturally appropriate maternity services. To this end the ACM has established the Rodanthe Lipsett Scholarship fund to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander women to study to become midwives. Entrance is free but any funds raised at the walk in Brisbane will be donated to this fund.
The walk on the 5th of May is the start of a journey that finishes at the ICM Congress in Durban in June 2011, a global gathering where 3000 midwives will share evidence of what works to reduce maternal mortality and improve the care and support available to mothers and newborns around the world.
Please see attached flyer and press release about this event.
How you can become involved:
• Join us for the walk: invite your family and friends and the women and families you have cared for!
• Print the flyer and display prominently in your workplace - Click here for FLYER
• Send the Press Release to any News, Radio, Newspaper or other media contacts you may have. Click here for Press Release
• Please RSVP Jane Menke j.menke@griffith.edu.au with 'IDM walk RSVP' in the subject line
• See updates for the event on facebook: 'International day of the Midwife 5km walk'
Could you also please let Bec Jenkinson know if you are planning on attending so that she can ensure MC is represented by a number of reps: qldpresident@maternitycoalition.org.au or (h) 07 3351 4834 (m) 0439 765 633. Thank you.
Sarah Kerr
National President
maternitycoalition.org.au
sarah.kerr@maternitycoalition.org.au
08 8369 2101 or 0417 381 598
Homebirthers! Midwives! Homebirth supporters! Friends & Families!
Please come celebrate the past, present and future of our home birth community!
Saturday March 12, 2011, 5pm – 10pm
Helensvale Community Centre (South Hall)
31 Discovery Dr., Helensvale QLD
(only a few minutes off the M1)
5pm – 6pm: Happy Hour and Raw Chocolate Smoothies!
5.30pm – 6.30pm: Singer/Songwriter Maryen Cairns on “Rock Maid to Mummy & More”
6.30pm: Dinner vegan, dairy free & gluten free food by ANA’s Catering, plus a couple of roast’s and a variety of homemade deserts
7.30pm Guest Speaker Dr Sarah Buckley Author of “Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering”, well known GP & Homebirth mum!
8pm – 10pm Lilobao & The Serpentine Dancers African Drumming & Dancers!
Interspersed with mother & son duo
Josie & Ethan Kernaghan
Face painting for the kids/ HMA stall/ Home-grown Arts & Crafts stalls/ Fabulous Raffle!!!
$20 p/p or $50 per family (+ $15 for extra tribe members) includes dinner and soft drink tickets for each person
Children under 5 are free
Prepaid tickets are preferred: on sale at support groups or by direct deposit: email treasurer@homebirth.org.au for details
The facebook event link is: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=199882620024592
Please email treasurer@homebirth.org.au numbers of adults and children coming to the event so we can make sure we get catering numbers right!
Please note all funds go to the Home Midwifery Association in support of homebirth choices and keeping your local support groups active.
This event is also listed on Facebook! Please "Like" our page at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=199882620024592#!/pages/Home-Midwifery-Association-QLD-Inc/157800367603126 and share this event with your friends!
On Sunday Feb 27, MC Qld Branch is holding our annual Orientation & Planning Workshop (agenda to follow shortly). Please circulate this information throughout your networks - especially in regional Queensland.
Last year, we saw a number of key milestones in the reform marathon - Medicare for Midwives is now a reality and the Queensland government has committed to expanding women's access to continuity of carer models by 2013. We also have involvement in a long awaited Consumer Representative Training project, under the auspices of Qld Centre for Mothers and Babies.
In 2011, our work will be focused on bedding down those milestones and ensuring that women remain central to their implementation. As the work begins in hospitals across Qld to create or expand continuity of carer models (in order to meet the government target by 2013), we will need an unprecedented number of consumer representatives making their voices heard. As Midwives take up the opportunities afforded by access to Medicare, we need to continue our work resolving the challenges of collaborative arrangements and also raise awareness in the community about this new care option. And of course, for MC to continue to be a vibrant and relevant consumer voice in birth reform, we need to have a special focus on membership and recruitment.
If you're already an active member of MC, if you have ideas or special interest in any of the above focus areas for 2011, or if you have a strategy that you’d like to propose, then you’ll want to be there to help shape our direction for 2011.
If you’re a relative new comer to the world of birth reform activism, this day is a great way to learn more and get involved. Whatever your interests, however much (or little) time you have, there is some way that you can help MC. Maybe you’d like to host a movie night or tell your birth story at an event? Maybe your curiosity has been piqued by the notion of consumer representation? Perhaps you are willing to open your home as a venue for branch meetings. Maybe you prefer work behind the scenes, caring for children, cooking a meal or driving other members to meetings – these are critical contributions that allow MC members to do the work that we do. Every effort makes a difference – enables us to keep driving forward in the campaign for “Every woman, Every choice”.
Please come along! Come to find out more. Come to meet other like-minded people. Come to dip your toe (or your whole leg) into the waters of birth reform.
Who: You (babes-in-arms welcome)
Where: 177 Frasers Rd, Mitchelton
When: 9am to 3pm, 27 Feb 2010
What to bring: A delicious dish for a shared lunch; Gold coin donation for morning tea; Your ideas, energy & enthusiasm.
RSVP: by email or phone to Ildiko Keogh by February 18.
07 32890184
ildikokeogh@yahoo.com
Consumers in regional Queensland who may need sponsorship for travel to attend are encouraged to contact Ildiko to discuss.
Looking forward to seeing you!
On behalf of Maternity Coalition Qld Committee,
With such tragic loss of life and destruction resulting from the floods across the state, know that our thoughts are with all of our members and their friends, families and midwives in flood affected areas.
For the families who have welcomed wee babes during these tumultuous days, we hope that their births mark a beacon of hope and a beginning of rebuilding in the most life-affirming way.
Stay safe.
Sincerely,
Bec Jenkinson
Maternity Coalition Queensland Branch President
qldpresident@maternitycoalition.org.au
