The ACNM Board of Directors and the leaders of the volunteer structure throughout ACNM, strongly encourage students to become involved in the areas they are interested in! This list will continue to be updated as new opportunities become available. If there is an area you are passionate about without an opportunity listed , please contact the chair of that division or section and they would be excited to help you get involved . To learn more about what each group does within the College go to: http://www.midwife.org/Volunteer-Structure.
Current Opportunities:
FRIENDS OF MIDWIVES OF COLOR COMMITTEE (FOMOCC) AND ETHNIC DIVERSITY CAUCUS
Description: Dedicated to assisting in the work of the Midwives of Color Committee (MOCC) and in promoting and increasing ethnic diversity among midwives. Members include anyone who is interested in the work of MOCC, come from all across the US, and represent a variety of ethnic groups such as Latino, African American, Asian, Native Indians, etc.
Contact Person: Venay
Uecke at
[email protected]
MIDWIVES OF COLOR COMMITTEE
Description: Recruits and retains persons of diverse ethnic/cultural backgrounds to the profession of midwifery, provides educational preparation to ACNM membership which will develop respect for cultural variations, and increases awareness and responsiveness to maternal/child health care issues affecting people of color. The committee has a variety of subcommittees for students to be a part of.
Contact Person: Patricia
Loftman at
[email protected]
HEALTHY BIRTH INITIATIVE (HBI)
Description: Aims to maximize a women’s opportunity to have a healthy birth using their own natural physiology while avoiding unnecessary procedures that may interfere with that process. The initiative takes a 3-pronged approach that includes equipping women, maternity care providers, quality managers, hospital policy makers, and payers with the tools to inspire better care, better health, and lower costs. They have created several tools to support and promote the value of healthy, spontaneous labor and birth.
Contact Person: Megan
Danielson
at
[email protected]
BirthTOOLS
Description: A subset of the HBI, BirthTOOLS stands for Tools for Optimizing the Outcomes of Labor Safety and BirthTOOLS.org is an interactive online toolkit that presents the evidence, and offers targeted resources, protocols, and other materials to assist clinicians and healthcare systems in implementing best practices that promote physiologic birth.
Student Role: One of the projects they are working on is making short video clips of success stories – how folks have implemented quality improvements into their clinical setting – with the intent of inspiring encouraging others to do the same. They are also looking for a student representative for the BirthTOOLS subcommittee. This involves a meeting by phone once a month, lasting about 30-45 minutes. If you are interested in being involved with this, let them know.
Contact Person:
CONSUMER AND ENGAGEMENT COMMITTEE (CEC)
Description: The CEC is part of the Division of Advocacy and Affiliate Support (DAAS). They provide recommendations and expertise to the ACNM Board of Directors, affiliate leadership, and members related to increasing consumer engagement in midwifery. They are a newly formed committee and have just begun brainstorming in regard to which direction they will take as they begin work. They made the decision to focus on our patient consumers. This decision grew out of a discussion during which an easy consensus was reached that we do much work to advance our profession but without a population of consumers who are aware of what midwives offer, its benefits, and how to access those services, we cannot succeed. To that end, they would be very happy to welcome a student or two to join the committee! The CEC is currently meeting monthly on the second Thursday of each month via Zoom.
Contact
Person:
Christina Kocis at [email protected]
AFFILIATE DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT COMMITTEE (AD&S)
Description: AD&S is a new committee tasked with strengthening and nurturing affiliates. To directly provide the ACNM with support and resources needed to create and manage dynamic and thriving affiliates. They are looking for ideas and support. They have discussed the student report requests and would like to work on implementing your ideas in the context of a larger affiliate level student engagement strategy! They would like to include student members on their committee to help develop and roll out such a strategy. That being said, they are looking for 1-2 more students to serve on the national committee in order to help make students available to affiliate leadership and to make affiliate leadership more available to students! The AD&S Committee meets by ZOOM monthly.
Contact
Person:
Helene Rippey at [email protected]or Leah
Kapela at
[email protected]
GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE AND POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (GAC AND PAC)
Description: The Government Affairs Committee sets ACNM’s legislative agenda and the Political Action Committee raises funds from ACNM members to advocate for this agenda. If you are a student interested in policy and advocacy they have opportunities for you! You can serve as a School Legislative Contact (SLC) and represent your school on quarterly calls. SLC duties include informing their classmates about updates in ACNM’s legislative agenda and participate in advocacy initiatives including Off the Hill Advocacy Week. For a larger role in ACNM’s advocacy work you can apply to be a GAC or PAC Student Rep. These 4 students sit on the two committees, participate in monthly calls and organize PAC fundraising and Off the Hill Advocacy Week. If you are interested in one of the Student Rep positions please reach out and we will contact you when the application opens!
Contact Person:Zoe Gutterman [email protected]