In 2019, Iolanthe Midwifery Trust made awards to 8 students and 9 midwives, including 2 Dora Opoku Awards, the Mary Cronk Award and the Elizabeth Duff Award. It also made Jean Davies Awards to two further projects.
Dora Opoku Student Award Winner
(for students from Black, Asian and other ethnic communities)
Trisania Bailey, studying at the University of Southampton, who undertook a midwifery elective placement in Ghana.
Dora Opoku Midwife Award Winner
(for midwives from Black, Asian and other ethnic communities)
Sarah Esegbona-Adeigbe, studying at the University of Hertfordshire, who is undertaking a qualitative study of the perceptions of migrant Nigerian mothers and midwives of cultural competency in antenatal care. Sarah also wins the Ann Stewart Award for given at the discretion of the Trustees for commitment to midwifery practice.
Student Award Winners
Alexandra Cass, a student midwife from Birmingham City University, who went on a midwifery elective placement in rural Wales.
Amanda Green, from the University of Plymouth, for a midwifery elective placement in Sri Lanka. (This was subsequently changed to a placement in Nepal, following Foreign Office advice not to travel to Sri Lanka.)
Felicity Cremin, a student midwife from City, University of London, will be undertaking a social enterprise Elective Aid placement in Bangladesh.
Kate Greenstock, Kingston University London, will use her award to fund a midwifery elective placement working with a charity in Northern Haiti. (This was subsequently changed to Ethopia following advice not to travel to Haiti.)
Natalie Dibsdale, studying at Cardiff University, is travelling to take up a midwifery elective placement in Namibia with the Wales for Africa programme.
Rebecca El Boukili, the University of Chester, will use her funding to create multilingual leaflets on when to seek help in pregnancy.
Sarah Walker, a student midwife from the University of Southampton, will be doing a midwifery elective placement in Uganda arranged through a UK charity.
Midwife Award Winners
Emma Mills, working at the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, Wales, who will put the award towards the Breech Project: improving local services and choices for women in relation to breech birth.
Jacqueline Dent, a midwife from the University of Hertfordshire, is using her funding to investigate the impact of working 12-hour shifts on the safety and quality of care in midwifery hospital settings.
Joyce Adu-Amankwah, a midwife based at St. George's Hospital, London, is using her award to study a post-qualification module on advancing client-centred care for haemoglobinopathies.
Laura Bridle, a midwife from Guys and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, presenting at the International Confederation of Midwives Conference in Bali on her qualitative study on the barriers and facilitators for midwives accessing language services for pregnant women who speak little or no English. (Unfortunately the conference has been cancelled due to the global Covid-19 situation.)
Lisa-Jayne Rose, who works at Bronglais Hospital, Aberystwyth, will be attending with colleagues an "Appropriate Skills and Appropriate Places" workshop to improve home birth services.
Claire Carter, based at Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, Harlow will use her award for the iSAFE study: Infant sleep and feeding experiences of mothers in Essex.
Sharyn Lock, a midwife from Yorkshire Storks Midwifery Collective/Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, is undertaking vaginal breech birth training including observation of births with her award. Sharyn also won the Mary Cronk Award, a special award for 2019 in memory of Mary who died in December 2018.
The Elizabeth Duff Award (supporting the midwife-mother relationship)
Ren Forteath, a midwife from NHS Dumfries and Galloway will use her award to stage a musical "Labours of Love" on the maternity experiences of service users and their partners.
The joint Iolanthe/RCM Jean Davies Award (addressing health inequalities in the UK)
Catherine Collins, from Northumbria University, who will be using her funding to undertake a PhD exploring the maternity experiences of women who have been trafficked into the UK,
And to:
Elsie Gayle, based at the University of Wolverhampton/Mimosa Midwives Practice, and her co-applicants Jenny Douglas, Tracy Wood and Mimosa Midwives will put on a conference aimed at ameliorating the root causes of black maternal and perinatal mortality, learning from international expertise in reproductive justice.
