How to become a preceptor midwife

Students in this midwifery programme need a minimum of 2400 midwifery practice hours over three years. This means they will need to work with many midwives in many maternity settings. As a midwife you can be as involved as you want to be and there are many ways that you can help. For example:

• As an LMC midwife you can talk to all your clients about having a midwifery student ‘follow through’.
  • This could be for a year one student where the role is mainly observational but important learning takes place about context for birth, maternity service provision and choices for women
  • Or for a year two student where more ‘hands on’ experience is expected and you can guide learning and skill development and help students to gain confidence and competence.
• As a core midwife you can work with midwifery students on placement in your maternity unit, teaching them midwifery skills in ‘real’ maternity settings, and supervising them as they provide care to women and babies. You can help them understand the important role of hospital services and how these can be provided ina women and family centred way, no matter whether the woman is having a normal birth or needs a high level of obstetric intervention.
  
• As an LMC midwife you can offer to take a third year student into your practice for a period of 6 – 14 weeks. In this case the student will work alongside you, hopefully with a major ‘hands on’ role but always under your guidance and supervision. These experiences are vital to help students consolidate their learning and gain confidence in their practice. Your impact  as teacher and as role model will be long lasting and significant.
• All midwives provide powerful role models. It is though you that students learn how the maternity system really works, how core and LMC midwives work in partnership, how midwives collaborate with medical and other specialists, and what it means to be a member of the midwifery profession.

The Midwifery Council of New Zealand has certain expectations about preceptor midwives. Council’s pre-registration midwifery education standards state that:

Practising midwives who precept or supervise midwifery students in practice areas must have at least three years post-registration midwifery practice experience to precept third year students, and at least one year of post-registration experience to precept first and second year students.

Practising midwives who precept midwifery students in medium¹ or long² placements must complete Midwifery Council approved courses in preceptorship and assessment and Cultural Safety within one year of taking on this role.

These requirements are being phased in from 2009 with the expectation that all midwives currently providing supervision to students in a preceptor role will have completed courses by 2014. We offer an online preceptorship course through this website .

If you would like to precept a student please contact us by clicking on the 'contact us' tag at the bottom of this page, or by phoning us on the numbers below. We are very grateful for your help.

Otago Polytechnic
Phone: 0800 762 786 and ask for the midwifery administrator who will put you in touch with a midwifery lecturer

CPIT
Phone: 0800 24 24 76 and ask for the Midwifery School

¹ Medium placements are where a student works on a one-to-one basis with a midwife for less than six weeks and where the midwife is required to teach and assess the student.

² Long placements are those where the student is placed one-to-one with an individual midwife for a period of six weeks or more and where the midwife is required to teach and to make assessments of the student’s competence.