Fostering Caregiver Wellness

timely topic Breakout

DATE: Sunday, October 15th
TIME: 10:15 am - 11:15 am
FACULTY: Julie Moon, MS, CNM & Olga Ryan, RN, MS-NL

Historically, midwives have been called to serve families, often to the detriment of their own health and well being. Day to day care of others is given top priority, and care of self gets the leftover time, if there is any. Post pandemic healthcare workers report levels of moral distress similar to military members deployed in active war zones. As we move forward and re-examine how we provide care within our systems, it is equally important to look at how we care for ourselves. It is critical that we look at what we are doing, and how we are doing it, and make sure we are building in support systems for the midwives and birth workers that make up our systems.

We will explore the topic of service vs. servitude, helping caregivers to understand the difference and recognize where they may be on the continuum. We will discuss different forms of horizontal and vertical violence, and encourage all caregivers to be actively working to eliminate these in themselves and their teams. In addition combating compassion fatigue by fostering self-awareness and self-compassion will be addressed. We will introduce some simple tools to help caregivers foster wellness within themselves, therefore helping to build stronger teams and stronger systems, and as a result providing safer and better care.

Faculty

Julie Moon, MS, CNM
Julie is a Certified Nurse Midwife and Owner/Educator at Midwives Untethered. She travels across the country providing education to midwives, EMS providers, and birth workers and to help them to refine NRP with limited numbers of staff and unique resources and settings. She has spent years working towards making the transfer and transport of birthing families as seamless as possible by working with EMS and midwives to develop skills and protocols. She is driven to serve and guide midwives, birth workers, EMS and all caregivers to optimize their care and their own well-being. She knows the key to this is care givers who are self-aware, compassionate, and empowered to perform within functional systems. She is honored to guard physiologic birth and the traditions of midwifery, while preserving safety and quality care.

Olga Ryan, RN, MS-NL
Olga has been an NRP instructor for more than 20 years and has been teaching NRP in the out-of-hospital birth setting since 2006. She is an experienced birth center leader having served as manager of the El Rio Birth & Women’s Health Center for 10 years and more recently as the director of Babymoon Inn, LLC in Tucson, AZ. She is active in AABC and CABC and has served in various roles in both organizations throughout her career. Olga has served in nursing leadership positions in a variety of perinatal units since 1994, with a special interest in process improvement projects. She is a passionate birth center advocate who works with birth centers and EMS systems to improve clinical care and processes that serve the families and the caregivers within them.