September 02, 2004

National competency standards for childbirth educators

In Australia there are no recognised competency standards for childbirth or parent education at the present time. This means that there are no nationally agreed standards that can be used to ensure that facilitators and leaders of prenatal programs have the necessary skills to do their jobs or that the programs themselves meet minimum requirements.

When we first had our Graduate Diploma in Childbirth Education accredited through the Federal Government’s Australian National Training Authority (1992), we were obliged to establish our own set of competency standards that could be used to measure the outcomes of our training. We drew on the work that had been done in a NSW State Government Review of Obstetric Service in 1987, when basic qualifications for educators and minimum requirements for prenatal classes were defined and agreed, through a wide consultation process, prior to their acceptance by the Review Panel (and the then Department of Health in NSW).

This year, when VETAB ( the accrediting Board for all Courses in Australia) re-accredited our Grad Dip for a further five years, we were informed that next time we applied for re-accreditation (2008) the course would have to be measured against nationally agreed competency standards for educators and parenting education programs.

This has left us with a dilemma: who is going to undertake this work, and how will the competencies be agreed before they are submitted to VETAB for endorsement? Given that this is going to be a time consuming and expensive process, involving wide consultation and considerable administrative support, I can’t see that there is anyone or any group, other than ourselves, who are in a position to take this on.

It might be said that we have a vested interest in doing this work, because it will directly impact on whether we can get our Graduate Diploma re-accredited. However, in reality, there is no professional group with the resources to undertake this task, and no-one else has the means to complete the process in a timely and efficient way. Over the coming weeks, we will be working out a basic strategy for developing these competencies, including the consultation processes that will be needed and investigating the administrative and support work that will be required. There will also be consideration of the budget and how we might cover these expenses.

If any of you would like to have some input into this task, or have suggestions regarding the competencies themselves, please email them to: graddip@birthinternational.com. If you want to check the competencies that we are currently using, as a basis for your contribution, you will find them listed in the Course information on our website, described as the “Learner Outcomes”.

Posted by andrea at September 02, 2004 12:55 PM