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Nurses and midwives of Australia now is the time for change! As powerfully placed, Indigenous and non-Indigenous nursing and midwifery professionals, together we can ensure an effective and robust Indigenous curriculum in our nursing and midwifery schools of education. Today, Australia finds itself in a shifting tide of social change, where the voices for better and safer health care ring out loud. Voices for justice, equity and equality reverberate across our cities, our streets, homes, and institutions of learning. It is a call for new songlines of reform. The need to embed meaningful Indigenous health curricula is stronger now than it ever was for Australian nursing and midwifery. It is essential that nursing and midwifery leadership continue to build an authentic collaborative environment for Indigenous curriculum development. Bipartisan alliance is imperative for all academic staff to be confident in their teaching and learning experiences with Indigenous health syllabus. This paper is a call out. Now is the time for Indigenous and non-Indigenous nurses and midwives to make a stand together, for justice and equity in our teaching, learning, and practice. Together we will dismantle systems, policy, and practices in health that oppress. The Black Lives Matter movement provides us with a 'now window' of accepted dialogue to build a better, culturally safe Australian nursing and midwifery workforce, ensuring that Black Lives Matter in all aspects of health care.

Aim: To critically appraise and synthesise the literature regarding the role and scope of midwifery practice, specifically to inform the evidence based development of standards for practice for all midwives in Australia., Design: A structured scoping review of the literature DATA SOURCES: CINAHL Complete, MEDLINE Complete and Cochrane Libraries databases, online and grey literature databases REVIEW METHODS: Comprehensive searches of databases used key words and controlled vocabulary for each database to search for publications 2006-2016. Studies were not restricted by research method., Findings: There is no substantive body of literature on midwifery competency standards or standards for practice. From 1648 papers screened, twenty-eight papers were identified to inform this review. Eight studies including systematic reviews were annotated with three research papers further assessed as having direct application to this review. To inform the development of Midwife standards for practice, the comprehensive role of the midwife across multiple settings was seen to include: woman centred and primary health care; safe supportive and collaborative practice; clinical knowledge and skills with interpersonal and cultural competence., Key Conclusions: Midwifery practice is not restricted to the provision of direct clinical care and extends to any role where the midwife uses midwifery skills and knowledge. This practice includes working in clinical and non-clinical relationships with the woman and other clients as well as working in management, administration, education, research, advisory, regulatory, and policy development roles., Implications for Practice: This review articulates the definition, role and scope of midwifery practice to inform the development of contemporary standards for practice for the Australian midwife., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

ePortfolios have been introduced into many higher education degrees in the past decade in an effort to help students to link theory, practice and personal experiences. This pilot study used a survey to examine ePortfolio use from the perspective of undergraduate nursing and postgraduate midwifery students. Fifty-seven students from a regional Australian university completed an online questionnaire which contained questions about the following areas of ePortfolio use: understanding of the tool; psychological perceptions; challenges around use; assessment; outcomes of use; benefits; maintenance of the ePortfolio; and enhanced learning. The majority of respondents were female, undergraduate students, aged 21-30 years. Results indicated that many students found ePortfolio use frustrating; in particular, technological and logistical challenges in using ePortfolios were highlighted. Most students, however, noted ePortfolios could be useful repositories for documents, reflections and learning experiences. Undergraduate students were more likely than postgraduate students to see the positive potential of ePortfolio use. The findings, coupled with the literature, raise questions about the effectiveness of ePortfolio use in nursing and midwifery education and, particularly, whether ePortfolios have been implemented with misguided and misinformed good intention. Further research is required to better understand the logistical and technological aspects of successful implementation of ePortfolios and fully capitalise on their benefits for nursing and midwifery education., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This paper aims to explore and discuss the role that ANMAC and the accreditation standards play in pre-registration nursing education nationally. The context of the discussion is situated in the continuum of events that mark the accreditation of nursing education in Australia. The National Registration and Accreditation Scheme has given rise to significant challenges related to the accreditation of nursing programs of education in Australia. Given the importance of accreditation to the quality of nursing education, ANMAC in its appointed role as accrediting authority, must fill the position rather than occupy it. Enhancing transparency and effectiveness is central to ensuring accreditation facilitates quality in nursing education. Given ANMAC's key position, further work is needed in developing a broad base of expertise by fostering scholarly output in the substantive area of nursing accreditation. There is a concerning lack of research centred on the accreditation of programs of nursing education along with the processes associated with it. This problem is not restricted to the Australian context but also extends internationally. In this context, the expertise of accreditors ought to be questioned along with the processes ANMAC use to identify individual capability. As such, the selection of experts needs to be articulated clearly by ANMAC along with the ownership of introducing a research culture into accreditation.