Jane Sandall is Professor of Midwifery and Women’s Health, Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, King’s College, London and Innovations Programme Director, NIHR King’s Patient Safety and Service Quality Research Centre. She leads the Women’s Health and Reproduction Research Group in the Division of Health and Social Care Research, and is a programme director in the NIHR King’s Patient Safety and Service Quality Research Centre leading a programme on innovations in service quality and health technologies. Jane is a co-investigator on Birthplace, a national study of birth outcomes in the home, midwife led, and obstetric led units.

David Chard is President of Engaging Minds, a consultancy, "Engaging Minds" focuses on executive coaching, leadership development, training and facilitation. David has accumulated over 30 years of professional experience in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific region. David is recognized for his deep experience in strategic crisis counsel and corporate reputation management and business communication.

INVITED SPEAKERS

Mandy Anderson - CEO of Medical Insurance Group Australia
Leslie Arnott - Childbirth Australia
Andrew Bisits - Director of Obstetrics and Delivery Suite, Royal Hospital for Women
Hannah Dahlen - Associate Professor of Midwifery, University of Western Sydney
Kate Dyer - High Risk Clinical Midwifery Consultant,Royal Hospital for Women
Maralyn Foureur - Professor of Midwifery for the Central Coast and Northern Sydney Local Health Networks in NSW and the Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Health at University of Technology Sydney
Stephanie Jones - Minter Ellison Lawyers
Melissa Maimann - Medicare-funded private midwife
Liz Mullens - Mullins Health Consulting
Andrew Pesche - Clinical Director of Women’s Health, Sydney West Area Health Service
Ted Weaver - Consultant Obstetrician
Alec Welsh - Professor in Maternal-Fetal Medicine, University of New South Wales

WORKSHOP PRESENTERS

Vanessa Clements, has worked as a midwife in the UK and Australia in a variety of clinical roles; improving access, equity, quality and safety of care for women and their families has always been her priority. Presently Clinical Midwifery Consultant for the NSW Maternity Support Network, she is a fervent advocate of support for newly-graduated midwives and midwifery models of care. Over the last few years Vanessa has helped to establish group-based as a standard model of care at St George and Sutherland Hospitals. More recently she has worked with Jane Raymond to establish the innovative St George and Sutherland Weight Intervention Group (SSWInG) which utilizes a group-based approach to provide individualized antenatal care to obese women.

Jane Raymond, has been a practicing midwife for over 20 years, with a strong research interest in public health. She has a background in midwifery education and health service development, both in the UK and in Australia, and currently manages the education program for the NSW Clinical Information and Access Program (CIAP). Jane has recently project managed the development of the innovative St George and Sutherland Weight Intervention Group (SSWInG) in Sydney South East Local Health District, funded by the NSW Department of Health. Jane is currently undertaking a PhD at UTS (Sydney), evaluating the factors that impact on the sustainability and transferability of this intervention.

In 2010, Jane Raymond and Vanessa Clements were successful in achieving further funding from the NSW Department of Health, based on the positive results of the SSWInG project. The funding has enabling Jane to facilitate the training of over 70 midwives in NSW in the technique of motivational interviewing, with the aim of helping to motivate women to make positive lifestyle change. The principles of motivational interviewing and experiences of some of the midwives Jane has trained have been captured on a 90minute training DVD. Jane and Vanessa have worked with the South Eastern Sydney LHD’s Women’s Health Unit in the production of this interactive education tool.

Michael Nicholl has been a medical practitioner for over 25 years and is a senior obstetrics & gynaecology specialist in both the public and private sectors in NSW. In 2004, Michael was appointed as the Clinical Director of the Division of Women's Children's & Family Health for the North Shore Ryde Health Service. He is the Chair of the Maternity, Neonatal &Women's Health Network for Northern Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service and is an appointed Obstetric Advisor to NSW Health. He holds the appointment of clinical associate professor with the Sydney Medical School in the discipline of Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Neonatology. Areas of expertise: specialist obstetrics & gynaecology clinical care and service development; executive health services planning and management; clinical and non-clinical organisational review and investigation; clinical process redesign; networks; adverse event investigation and management; safety and quality of maternity services.

Sarah Stewart, is an, educational developer at Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand, EdD student at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and social media and eLearning consultant with Ed-Bytes, New Zealand. Sarah is the facilitator of the annual online international conference the “Virtual International Day of the Midwife” and a blogger(http://sarah-stewart.blogspot.com). Sarah has published widely and is known internationally for her work using social media and online resources for teaching and life-long learning. Sarah’s current research projects include ePortfolio for professional registration, open educational resources (OER) and the use of social media for continuing professional development for health professionals.

Caroline Homer, is the Professor of Midwifery, Director of the Centre for Midwifery, Child and Family Health and Director of Midwifery Studies in the Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Health at the University of Technology Sydney. Caroline is currently leading research and consultancies into safety and quality in health care, place of birth, midwifery continuity of care, and workforce issues for maternity care providers. She is also part of research teams developing a system to track severe maternal morbidity; and, testing new ways of providing maternity care. Caroline is a member of NHMRC’s Research Committee and is an instructor in the Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics Course and a a member of the NSW Maternal and Perinatal Health Priority Taskforce which provides high level strategic advice to the NSW Minister for Health.

Aldo Vacca, is Consultant Obstetrician at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital and Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, at The University of Queensland. Dr Vacca has devoted much of his time to improving the teaching and training of vacuum extraction and has published extensively on the subject. Dr Vacca has a special interest in developing interactive computer programs for self-directed learning in medical education.