Media Release
March 11 2008
Nursing and midwifery education – the front line of child protection
Just what role nurses and midwives can play in child protection and
infant and child wellbeing is the focus of a national education forum
being held in Adelaide this week by the
Australian Centre for Child
Protection.
The Nursing and Midwifery Education and Child Protection Forum will examine how nursing and midwifery graduates can best be educated and prepared to respond effectively to child abuse and neglect.
Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Child Protection, Dr Lyn Arnold, says the role of nurses and midwives can be vital in preventing child abuse and neglect because they are one of the few professional groups that engage with children under the age of five years and have involvement with families from their earliest development as a unit.
“Nurses and midwives provide the majority of the primary prevention services in child protection including antenatal services, neonatal intensive care, home visiting services, paediatric and child health nurses, maternal and child health services, school nurse programs and community health services,” she said.
“They have the capacity to assess a child’s ongoing safety and wellbeing and parents’ capacity to support, protect and assist a child. Where necessary, they can collaborate with community and acute care services to provide intervention and support programs.”
Dr Arnold says the proportion of nurses working outside of the acute hospital setting has more than doubled in recent years with many more nurses and midwives now working autonomously in community settings.
“We need to examine the educational tools given to this frontline group who are likely to come face to face with child abuse and neglect in their everyday work and think about how we can enhance the child protection content of their education courses,” she says.
“Education needs to move beyond understanding the mandatory reporting requirements to also engage with the children and families impacted by the requirements.”
The forum will also review the interim results of an audit of child protection content in nursing and midwifery education courses across Australia.
“Finding out exactly what is being taught to our future nurses and
midwives about child protection is a really important first step,” Dr
Arnold says.
The forum also aims to develop a collaborative network of researchers,
nurses and midwifery educators.
Keynote speaker at the forum is Professor Lesley Barclay, Professor of Health Services Development in the Institute of Advanced Studies at Charles Darwin University, who has been a technical adviser to governments, AusAID, World Bank and WHO.
“The forum is an opportunity for key players in the area of professional education for nurses and midwives to really focus on the child protection issue, to explore how best to deliver education programs which enhance child protection,” Prof Barclay said.
“Through identifying current good practice in nursing and midwifery education programs in the area of child protection we will be able to develop a model for this standard Australia-wide.”
The Child Protection and Nursing and Midwifery Education project is a part of the Australian Centre for Child Protection’s Professionals Protecting Children program which aims to develop practitioners equipped to prevent and respond to child abuse and neglect in disciplines including teaching, social work, medicine, nursing and psychology.
Contacts for interview
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Dr Lyn Arnold office (08) 8302 4173 / 8302 4030 email lynette.arnold@unisa.edu.au
Professor Lesley Barclay mobile 0412 282 801 email lesley.barclay@cdu.edu.au
Media contact
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Lisa McDonald office (08) 8302 4063 mobile 0434 367 876 email mcdonald.lisa@unisa.edu.au