Neurodivergence acceptance - Embedding cultural competence in midwifery education

Background:

The RCM is committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion within all aspects of maternity services. This starts with midwifery education.

With a growing awareness of neurodivergent students and healthcare professionals, education needs to be designed to be accessible and free from obstacles to support.

We have produced a unique toolkit to support midwifery educators to provide inclusive education, advocating for widespread neurodivergence acceptance.

By educators developing more inclusive midwifery curricula, we hope to contribute to more equitable and accessible maternity services that better serve diverse communities.

Methods:

The ‘neurodivergence acceptance toolkit’ aims to prompt midwifery educators to evaluate their processes, from recruitment to qualification, to create a learning environment in which neurodivergent students can thrive.

The RCM coproduced the toolkit in partnership with a range of stakeholders with lived experience and enabling educators to examine their midwifery programmes from diverse perspectives. Feedback has already shown improvements to the educational journey for midwifery students who face discrimination, ultimately improving experiences for midwives, women, birthing people and their babies.

Results:

Neurodivergence Acceptance Toolkit

Conclusion:

The toolkit advocates for accessible and inclusive education within universities and practice, ultimately improving the learning experience for all midwifery students and resulting in a more competent workforce.

Potential impact:

It is shown that neurodivergent people, often from intersecting identities, experience discrimination. This applies equally to childbearing women, midwives and midwifery students. If the maternity workforce is representative of the population it serves, outcomes will improve, as will the attrition rates of the neurodivergent healthcare workforce.