In this Opportunity Spotlight episode, Christoph Clodius is joined by Adrienne Carruthers, Co-Chair of the Midwives Association of British Columbia (MABC). She shares how she advocates for midwives’ access to proper health benefits, liability insurance, and training opportunities. Adrienne also explains MABC’s work for indigenous midwives and their current search for a new executive director.
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Midwives Association Of British Columbia With Adrienne Carruthers, Co-Chair
Introducing Co-Chair Adrienne Carruthers
Everyone, welcome to another Opportunity Spotlight episode. I’m delighted to be joined by Adrienne Carruthers, who is the co-chair of the Midwives Association of British Columbia. We’re here to talk about the executive director role that Midwives BC is hiring, and that I have the pleasure of working with them on. Welcome, Adrienne.
Thank you so much, Christoph.
It’s great to have you on the show. I’m delighted to be talking about midwives and midwifery, the sector, the industry, the person we’re looking for, and what’s on the horizon. We’re going to cover a lot in a short time. Buckle up. Maybe we can just start off with a bit about you. Tell me a bit about yourself, Adrienne. What is it that you do? How did you get involved with the Midwives Association specifically? What keeps you involved?
I became a midwife back in 2013. I’m one of these people who made a decision as a teenager that I’m going to be a midwife. I never changed my mind. I’ve been mentally a midwife since a very young age. I’m very committed and consider it a calling. I got involved with the MABC a few years ago because I generally have an interest in governance and board not-for-profit stuff, and I care a lot about midwifery. I care a lot about how midwives are perceived across the province. I care a lot about what role we can play in primary care. The list goes on. There are a million reasons why I stay involved and keep interested in midwifery.
The Midwives Association of British Columbia
People come to their volunteer roles and their leadership roles for all kinds of reasons. It’s exciting to have that sort of commitment. For someone who isn’t familiar with the Midwives Association of BC, I certainly wasn’t that familiar with it a few months ago, until we got started. Tell me a bit about the association. What does it do? Who does it represent? What are you trying to achieve as an association and as a group?
The Midwives Association of BC represents midwives across the province. We collaborate with the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders to ensure we have contracts, to ensure we have benefits, to ensure that provincial policies recognize midwives for their vital role in healthcare. Our mission includes advocating for fair representation, access to resources and education, and that midwives get the recognition they deserve in the healthcare system. All that said, we provide essential advocacy support. We administer health benefits, liability insurance, and training opportunities. We also help with connecting the public to midwifery care.
All About The Indigenous Midwifery Program
One of the key things that I like about your service is right off the top of your website. Who are you? Why are you coming to the association? Are you looking for a midwife? Do you want to become a midwife? Maybe tell me a bit more about the Indigenous Midwifery Program and the support you’re giving First Nations and Indigenous communities. I’m intrigued by that. I think people might want to know a little bit more about that specifically, too.
The last contract negotiation that we won was a precedent-setting contract. We were awarded $2.5 million in continual funding for an Indigenous midwifery program. That increased the funding envelope. It increased the capacity of our Indigenous Midwifery Council. Now, they are a sister organization to the Midwives Association. We work together to ensure that Indigenous Midwifery is brought back to communities as it’s always been there, and it was taken away from communities from colonization. We work step-in-step with our Indigenous midwifery colleagues to ensure representation, returning birth to the community, and ensuring that the Indigenous voice is always at the table as well.
The Progress Of Midwives Over Two Decades
I appreciate the shifting. You alluded to this at the very beginning, and I want to pick up with us on this thread a little bit around the changing perceptions and the growing role of midwives in the healthcare system. The growing acceptance of midwives in the healthcare system, and through patients, parents, and families. In your tenure or beyond, what are you most proud of the MABC having accomplished either in your tenure or in recent years? Before we jump to the future, I want to close off the past a little bit with recent accomplishments.
Generally speaking, I’m proud of the progress midwives have made over the past twenty years. Since 1998 when it was regulated, it has grown from a small group of passionate professionals to a vital part of the healthcare system. Midwives deliver 25% of the babies in the province. We’re stabilizing sexual, reproductive, and newborn healthcare in communities, including speaking to Indigenous communities. Ensuring that those things are all accessible in remote communities as well as First Nations communities.
Midwives Association: Midwives have made great process over the past 20 years. It has grown from a small group of passionate professionals to becoming a vital part of the healthcare system.
How Teamwork Looks Like In Midwifery
That 25% number struck me. It’s growing, I’m sure, or at least I hope it’s growing because it’s such a compelling case. It highlights the importance of the association and its representation of midwives. Shifting gears a little bit, I want to talk about culture because the executive director is going to be working with you, working with your fellow board members, the board members of the future. What is the board culture like? How does teamwork happen? How do board members collaborate and work together, and work in turn with the executive director?
I like to lead the board from a consensus-based decision-making process. I’m also a social worker, as well as a registered midwife. I use a lot of the training that I have in this dual registration capacity to facilitate conversations, form relationships, and all that kind of stuff. That’s what I like to see on the board as well. We’re a close-knit group of midwives mostly. Currently, all of our board members are midwives except for one who’s an accountant and is our non-member director. There’s that important factor in considering our board too. It’s that we’re working midwives. We’re seeking a new executive director.
You may be seeking a midwife too.
Maybe a midwife or anybody qualified. We’re seeking someone who can be a positive culture driver, someone who values collaboration, and understands our profession’s distinct needs. Also, someone who can help us navigate the rapid growth that we’re experiencing right now. As I alluded to earlier, we had this precedent-setting contract. That has been amazing for Midwives on the ground, but it has also meant a lot of change. We need someone who can help us steer the chip.
The Future Of The Association And Ideal Executive Director
I’ve joked before with other midwives on the board who have joked with me about the hours of this person’s role potentially could vary quite significantly because babies don’t come on a schedule. Working with working midwives means that schedules change and meetings get canceled. That’s perfectly legitimate and as it should be in many ways. Not to say this is a 12-hour or 24-hour day job, but just being mindful of the context and culture. Thinking about what is on the horizon for the organization, I know there are some negotiations upcoming. Maybe you want to speak a bit more about that. What’s exciting and compelling about the future of the association and the new ED will be taking the MABC?
The current agreement that we have is from 2022 to 2025. If the applicants are aware of the healthcare sector, they should know that everybody goes to the table in the same year. Most of the folks doing contract negotiations with the Ministry of Health are on the same schedule. This is the year that we start our negotiation process again. That’s on the horizon for MABC and the upcoming executive director. In general, the MABC’s role is changing quite rapidly as well. We need someone who can manage operational and visionary goals cohesively. Even on a big scale, there’s a crisis of healthcare providers at the moment.
It’s always in the backdrop of the work that we do, responding to advocacy needs for midwives in tenuous situations where maybe there are only a few midwives or maybe they don’t get the support that they need within their health authority or institution or something like that. We need an executive director who can be responsive to the healthcare crisis, and also put their feet to the ground in terms of contract negotiations and stuff like that.
Midwives Association: MABC wants an executive director who can be responsible for the healthcare crisis and puts their feet on the ground in terms of contract negotiations.
We talked about the midwives’ membership or the association membership at the very beginning. This is a group that has high expectations, perhaps, of the association because you’re doing life-changing fundamental work. It’s managing that dynamic, managing membership as well, and their varying needs, the advocacy, the championing, the responsiveness, the proactivity, the member engagement, and those communication pieces. Those lead to competencies around transparent communications.
I like how you talk about the change management piece. If there are changes to be made, communicate those effectively. Developing listening to be a good listener and responsive, and so on. There’s a lot to take in. It’s a wide-ranging and exciting role for somebody who wants to sink in and effect some change fundamentally that’s compelling. Anything else you want to say in regards to our ideal candidate, like the unicorn candidate or your dream person? What’s on your ideal list if there’s anything else? I know it’s becoming a very long list because we have high expectations, but not everybody is going to take every box. If they were, what do you think they would bring?
Just the thoughts that you brought in there, that was like, “Yes, Christoph. Yes, we need member engagement. We need someone who can be a change manager in negotiating those relationships.” You read my mind. Our unicorn or our special person is someone who can take on all of these tasks in a way that focuses on relationship development, communication, transparency, accountability, and all of these things, and takes a visionary lead on this stuff as well. By nature, midwives want to feel hope in their leaders. They want to see someone who can drum up some of that enthusiasm, encouragement, and optimism for the future. That’s what midwives like to see by nature. It’s someone who can do all of that.
Midwives want to feel hope in their leaders. They want to see someone who can keep up with their enthusiasm and provide encouragement for the future. Click To TweetNot a short list at all. That’s excellent. What do you think an executive director should do to earn a gold star? If you think about immediate needs in the first months, are there specific things? Are there any hopes and dreams and goals you’d want to see this person achieve early on in their tenure?
Right off the bat, operational vision and making an operational team that can join them alongside in accomplishing all of these big tasks, we’re looking for. An operational team that can keep up to this rapid growth of the profession, and has a similar kind of optimistic outlook and vision for hope in the future. A gold star would be someone who could catapult in and be like, “This is what we need to do. These are the team members we need. This is the structure.”
Currently, we are always reviewing our organizational structure and thinking about how we could do this better. Hopefully, things are all set up for the person to come into, but our executive director will need to look at what we’re handing them and have that critical eye and be like, “This is how it could improve.”
Bring their best practices and thoughts to the table and explore it that way. It’s adding up to a very compelling picture. If you were to summarize what’s most compelling, what’s most exciting about this opportunity for a candidate, thinking about throwing their hat into the ring? Maybe they already have, and we just want to reinforce what’s exciting and compelling by the time they’re listening. What would that case be?
To be quite frank, midwives are loved by their clients and their communities. To be part of that is a pretty beautiful thing. When you’re involved with us and the work that we do, you’re going to hear birth stories. You’re going to hear these amazing tales of swooping in at the right minute for that home birth and that kind of stuff. I think it’s just the energy that keeps people interested, invested, and on their toes. Also, just like in the bigger context of what we’re experiencing in the world right now, being involved with midwives means that you’re on the forefront of reproductive policy.
Being involved with midwives means you are at the forefront of reproductive policy. Click To TweetWhat an amazing thing to be able to add to that discourse in a positive way, encouraging midwifery-led healthcare, encouraging access to reproductive healthcare, sexual healthcare, newborn healthcare. All that kind of stuff that on a bigger global scale isn’t necessarily being honored in the way that it should be.
Message For The Future Executive Director
That’s so unique. As you said, bringing in that indigenous lens of traditional ways of knowing or traditional knowledge. One of your colleagues on the board described it as heart work. Midwifery is heart work. It’s work that people feel passion for, they feel a calling to do it fundamentally. It’s such a compelling piece. I love how you put the forefront of reproductive policy. There are compelling political and impactful things that can happen beyond the scope of midwives themselves, and going into the entire healthcare sector. Anything I missed or anything else you wanted to add, or any messages for potential candidates before we adjourn?
This is an impactful role and it’s a relational job. The leaders in this sector can make a difference. We’re at such a pivotal moment with this amazing contract in our recent history and the growth of the profession generally and the global landscape that we’re considering. There’s so much that can be accomplished here. We’re excited about having a strong leader, supporting that strong leader, working alongside them, and making this a successful opportunity for whoever comes. Please apply.
That’s exciting. I’m looking forward to meeting the candidates. I’m looking forward to having us all meet candidates and having some very interesting discussions as candidates learn more about you and you learn about them, and we bring some great people forward. For more information, if people are curious and you’re interested, check out BCMidwives.com. This is their website address. My email address is [email protected], or you can check out the posting on LinkedIn or any one of our web pages. Adrienne, I appreciate your time, your enthusiasm, and your willingness to share so much of yourself in this process. I’m looking forward to working with you as we go ahead.
Thank you so much, Christoph.
