Why Birthrights training?
At a time when healthcare professionals are under increasing pressure from competing requirements and stretched resources, human rights law empowers and protects healthcare professionals who put women and birthing people at the centre of their care.
The human rights framework equips midwives and doctors to judge what treatment is never acceptable, when an individual’s right to choose needs to be weighed against the rights of others, and how to enable people to make informed decisions about their care.
Our trainers
Our training sessions are run by two trainers – one with in-depth knowledge of human rights law and how it applies to maternity care and one who is a midwife or doctor with practical experience of delivering human rights-centred care. Trainers are drawn from our team of staff, Trustees and Associate Trainers.
Training outcomes
Our training equips doctors, midwives and supporting women and birthing people with:
- knowledge of the law and human rights principles
- an understanding of how to apply it in practice
- the ability to communicate effectively in a way that upholds their human rights
Our training is particularly effective if undertaken by multi-disciplinary teams that work together.
What does Birthrights’ training cover?
Our CORE training is available to frontline healthcare professionals working in maternity care. If you are responsible for learning and development at your Trust or hospital, please get in touch at training@birthrights.org.uk to ask about booking training.
CORE training covers:
- An introduction to human rights and where they come from (primarily the European Convention on Human Rights/Human Rights Act 1998).
- An exploration of key common law judgements relevant to maternity care including Montgomery vs Lanarkshire.
- Consideration of the implications of human rights law and common law cases for maternity care, and what legal obligations doctors and midwives have as NHS employees.
- Practical discussion of case studies and common scenarios in small groups, e.g. consent for induction, maternal request caesarean, request to give birth in a birth centre which does not meet guidelines.
Objectives:
Half-day:
- To ensure all participants understand where human rights come from and how they apply to maternity care.
- To ensure all participants understand the implications of Montgomery v Lanarkshire, and other legal cases that are relevant to consent and informed choice.
- To ensure all participants have the opportunity to put this understanding into practice by working in small groups to looking at real life cases with women and birthing people.
Full-day (in addition to half-day’s objectives):
- To equip participants to have choice conversations with women and birthing people that facilitate providing the information they need, give professional recommendations and explore alternative options – in order to achieve informed consent.
- To equip participants to identify and sensitively challenge behaviour by colleagues that is disrespectful or unsafe.
- To reflect on appropriate informal and formal escalation routes if needed to protect women and birthing people’s rights and safety.
- To provide a safe space for healthcare professionals to develop their communication practice.
Training for Doulas, Birthworkers and Peer Supporters
Does your organisation support women and birthing people? Do you want to empower your staff and volunteers in how they can use the law to advocate for safer care for their service users? Our module “Human Rights in Maternity Care: helping others navigate the system” is a half-day training day that can be delivered online or in person to support your organisation to advocate for women and birthing people.
Objectives:
Half-day:
- For all participants to understand where human rights come from and how they apply to maternity care.
- For all participants to feel confident in identifying actions they can take to help a client address a human rights breach.
- For all participants to feel empowered to support clients to advocate for themselves.
What do people say about Birthrights training?
Our training has consistently been shown to inspire healthcare professionals to change their practice:
- In 2022/2023, 92% of participants said that the training would change the way they worked with women and birthing people.
- 98% of participants recently surveyed said they would recommend Birthrights training to others.
- The vast majority of respondents, 94%, reported that their knowledge of human rights law in maternity care increased after attending a Birthrights training session.
How to get the most out of Birthrights training
For Trusts, hospitals and health boards looking to commission Birthrights’ training, we have put together this guide to ensure that you know how to get the best out of Birthrights training. We recommend that you:
- Let the Birthrights Training Team know if there are any specific issues or concerns that you think need addressing in your Trust or hospital. That includes serious incidents or cases that may have been a while ago, we know that NHS staff are rarely given a chance to debrief and often have ongoing trauma and anxieties from cases that occurred even years earlier. It is really important to us that we enter these spaces understanding the collective experience and history of our participants so that we can facilitate learning and development in a way that is safe for them.
- Allow your staff to attend Birthrights training during working hours: Birthrights training addresses important educational gaps in maternity care, and it is pivotal that staff are given the opportunity to attend this training during working hours.
- Take staff who are booked to attend off-rota: staff who are on-call are not given the same time and space to engage and learn.
- Try to ensure that the session will be attended by a mixture of disciplines and grades: the best learning happens when MDTs come together to learn from each other.
- As part of our feedback collection, we ask what participants need to be able to deliver rights-respecting care and we share that feedback with you anonymously. We always encourage organisers to use that feedback to continue to do the work to support their staff, and we encourage you to share those next steps with both ourselves and your staff. We can only have rights-respecting maternity care, when staff feel safe and able to deliver that care.