Action learning as a tool to prepare supervisors of midwives

Supervision of midwives is a statutory responsibility which provides a mechanism to support and guide practising midwives. The preparation course to become a supervisor of midwives (SoM) at the University of Hertfordshire requires a midwife to be nominated by her peers and to undertake a course at Masters level over two semesters. A learning strategy on the preparation course is ‘action learning’ (AL), whereby groups of six or seven student supervisors compulsorily attend six action learning sessions. AL requires skills of analysis, scrutiny and reflexivity. An exploration of AL as a teaching strategy on the SoM preparation course led to the conclusion that this is an appropriate and high-quality teaching method which develops the reflective skills of the participants as well as developing self awareness and communication skills to a high standard.