Maternity Support Worker Review

I am Maternity Support Worker. I provide support to the Midwives and Doctors in caring for antenatal and postnatal women and their babies.

Sure, I have increased my knowledge and developed new skills, despite the lack of support from the university and the bad communication between the university and the hospital.

I enjoyed a lot to learn and feel more confident to step forward in my work. I would like to say that this has been possible due to my willingness to learn, my own research, doctors and midwives support, and an amazing small peer group that has been always there. No support from the university or teachers mainly from the start of the second year, we were left aside and with the feeling that nobody wanted to be there teaching and they had no clue what we were doing that for.

No organisation or structure. Constant change of teachers. Sometimes teachers with healthcare background but no knowledge at all on how to teach. No clue about providing answers or support enough about the End of Point Assessment except by one person who is brilliant and helpful. Since the course lead, who was quite good, got retired everything went wrong and wrong. The course director, absent.

Not amazing some times. Some people were so helpful and supportive. Again, the lack of communication between the hospital and the university, and the poor information provided to our managers about what was the good thing about doing this programme to them, affected the way I was supported as some times they did not know even what I was doing or what they should do in regards to it.

Short feedbacks on drafts that left me without really knowing what I should do or change. Lack of replies to the emails, sometimes forwarded to different people from teachers to course director with no response. On some subjects, we had more clarification talking between students and guessing what we were supposed to do than from the staff. Again, that happened mainly from the beginning of the second year. Said that, there were couple teachers on the second year that were helpful and understanding our situation.

My qualification is perfect to be able to develop within my career. Once more, the training provider it did not help massively to achieve it though.

Yes, I was able to attend different events to support my learning through the course.

No

Despite I am more than happy regarding my role and the staff I am working with, it is so difficult to develop your career and get promoted to the appropriate level after your training. It is good for working but not to evolve as a professional.

Learn as much as you can, enjoy your time there, but get ready to move on if you want to achieve more.