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Senior Midwifery Lecturer receives Travel Fellowship Award

Posted on 19 March 2018

Dr Cathryn Britton, Senior lecturer in Midwifery and Lead Midwife for Education has been awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travel Fellowship.

Dr Cathryn Britton, Senior lecturer in Midwifery and Lead Midwife for Education has been awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travel Fellowship. Cathryn will use the Churchill Fellowship to visit Australia and New Zealand to explore approaches to the design and delivery of midwifery education curricula, investigate innovations in simulation of practice and explore strategies to improve the retention of newly qualified midwives in maternity services. 

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust (www.wcmt.org.uk) is the UK’s national memorial to Sir Winston, and each year the Trust awards Fellowship grants to UK citizens in a range of fields to enable Churchill Fellows to carry out research projects overseas. These projects are designed to exchange ideas and best practice, and build greater understanding between people and different cultures, in order that professions and communities can benefit from international collaboration. 

Cathryn said: “I am delighted and proud to be awarded the Churchill Fellowship. There is so much for us to learn and share with others and this award enables that to occur. Midwifery education in the UK is changing and this opportunity will help me consider these changes and disseminate good practice from elsewhere that we may wish to consider. I have a particular concern that many excellent newly qualified midwives leave the profession and it is timely to consider strategies that may help retain them within the maternity services. I have recently attended a seminar for newly awarded Churchill Fellows and was inspired by the range and diversity of projects that have been funded.” 

Cathryn intends to visit four universities in Australia and universities in the North and South islands of New Zealand. This opportunity is timely with the development of the new Midwifery Education Standards by the Nursing and Midwifery Council and will feed into the reshaping of the midwifery curriculum within the Department.