The Iolanthe Midwifery Trust and the family and friends of Sophie Rayner are delighted to announce a new student midwife award for 2027 - The Sophie Grace Fellowship Award for neurodivergent student midwives.
This innovative award honours the passion of Sophie, a student midwife. It offers 12 remote monthly sessions of up to 4 hours a month with an external mentor to a student midwife who identifies as neurodivergent and who may be facing other challenges.
Professor Mary Renfrew, Patron of The Iolanthe Midwifery Trust welcomed the award:
"We are delighted to be working with the family and friends of Sophie to establish this exciting award. It represents a departure for us at The Iolanthe Midwifery Trust, in that this funds a mentoring package for a student midwife, rather than funding research or a project."
Sophie's family said:
"We are delighted to partner with the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust in sponsoring The Sophie Grace Fellowship Award which will be launched in 2027. Working together we have developed this award which recognises the barriers that neurodivergent student midwives face in their time at university and provides an innovative way of offering support year round."
Full details of the award will soon be available on the The Iolanthe Midwifery Trust website here for the 2027 application round, which opens on 1 December 2026.
Formal recruitment for mentors will be starting in the early autumn but if you are interested and want more details please email [email protected]