Assessment of Internationally-Educated Midwives

In 2003, Canadian midwifery regulators committed to working together to develop a national strategy for assessing internationally-educated midwives who wish to work in Canada.  Regulators agreed that a comprehensive national approach to competency assessment could maximize the limited resources of current provincial regulators, support provinces that are not yet regulated in moving toward regulating midwifery, and facilitate the entry-to-practice of internationally-educated midwives.  In 2006, the National Midwifery Assessment Strategy was approved.  To be able to fully implement this strategy, various projects have taken place, are underway, or are planned for by the CMRC.

Midwifery Bridging Project 2006 - 2010

The development of a multi-jurisdictional midwifery bridging program is currently being funded through a financial contribution from Health Canada via the Western and Northern Health Human Resources Planning Forum, and by members of the CMRC. This program will be designed to provide access to bridging education for internationally-educated midwives who live in various provinces and territories. Its intention is to ensure that participants are able to stay in their home communities as much as possible while they learn about Canadian midwifery, fill any discrete competency gaps identified by Canadian regulators, and gain midwifery experience in a Canadian setting. The pilot program, Multi-jurisdictional Midwifery Bridging Pilot (MMBP), is being launched in April 2009. Application deadline October 14, 2008.

The Research Phase of the MMBP took place in 2006-07.  Research included:

• Needs Assessment – an analysis of data from previous assessments of IEMs to determine the gaps in knowledge or skills that must be addressed in a bridging program.
• Environmental Scan – a scan of courses or workshops that already exist that address these gaps to determine if any of these can be used by and/or adapted for the midwifery bridging program.
• Best Practices Review – a study of reports and findings related to promising practices in professional bridging programs in Canada and overseas.

The Final Report summarizes the findings and details a workplan for the Implementation Phase of this project.

As of the Fall of 2007, the Implementation Phase is underway.  

Midwifery Assessment Tools Project: 2006-07

Funding from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada's Foreign Credential Recognition branch supported the continued development of two critical assessment tools in 2006/07: the Canadian Midwifery Registration Examination and the International Midwifery Credentials Database.  Both tools are or will soon be used by regulators across Canada in their assessment of internationally-educated midwives.  More information is available in the project’s Final Report.

National Midwifery Assessment Strategy Project: 2003-06

The National Midwifery Assessment Strategy (NAS) project was a three year project of the Canadian Midwifery Regulators Consortium that used a participatory action research framework to create a national strategy for fairly and effectively assessing internationally-educated midwives. It was funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and the members of the CMRC.

The Developmental Phase confirmed the need for the NAS project and resulted in a comprehensive Research Plan. Phase One involved a variety of research methods and resulted in the Phase One Report, as well as the following more detailed reports:

Report on Focus Groups with Internationally-Educated Midwives

Report on Focus Group with Midwifery Supervisors

Report on the Results of an International Survey of Health Regulators

Phases Two and Three involved continued research and the development of assessment tools, according to priorities identified in Phase One.  These included the Canadian Midwifery Registration Examination, the Midwifery Credential Evaluation Database, the conceptualization of a multi-jurisdictional midwifery bridging program, and this website designed to provide information to internationally-educated applicants.

Phase Three also included an external project evaluation.  The Final Project Report summarizes the NAS project.