The Perceptions of Midwifery 30 Day Challenge resource pack

1. 30 Day Challenge: Joy At Work
Ambassadors’ Resource Pack
October 2019
Transforming Perceptions of Midwifery
#PerceptionsOfMidwifery

2. The role of a midwifery ambassador
Welcome to the first 30 Day Challenge to transform perceptions of midwifery.
As a midwifery ambassador, 30 Day Challenges are an opportunity for you to help
reignite the passion that midwives have for their profession. The Challenges support
activities which increase job satisfaction, improve retention and help make
connections for like-minded colleagues to share, learn and spread innovative ways of
working.
Each Challenge will have a dedicated resource pack, co-created with you, for you.
Your participation with colleagues in each Challenge will help to catalyse a social
movement nationally, supporting midwifery ambassadors at local, regional and
national levels to transform the perceptions of midwifery.
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This set of 30 Day Challenges has been designed specifically for the Transforming Perceptions of Midwifery programme,
based on the outputs from our launch event in January 2019. The Challenges create opportunities for midwives to promote
the profession as a first-choice career option, enhance current midwives’ pride in the profession and demonstrate the
status of midwifery as a trusted, clinically-expert profession.
Picture courtesy of Liverpool Women’s Hospital

3. October Challenge: What is in the pack?
Activity Page
The importance of joy in the workplace 4
30 Day Challenge: Why and Where to Start 5
Hosting a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party 8
Take 15 seconds to save 30 minutes 11
Running a Randomised Coffee Trial 13
Join the Midwifery Ambassadors RCT 15
Sharing your Joy at Work Activities 17 3
Our first 30 Day Challenge focuses on Joy in Work. It will support you to lead impactful activities, with your
colleagues, which promote joy in the workplace and create stronger social bonds across your team(s). This
resource pack includes information and activities to make your first 30 Day Challenge successful:

4. 4
Joy at Work: A component part of Quality Improvement
Sources:
15 seconds 30 minutes #15s30m
IHI Framework for Improving Joy in Work. IHI White Paper. Cambridge, Massachusetts: 2017. (Available at ihi.org)
Patient
Safety
Cost
Effective
Joy at
work
Do it together

5. 30 Day Challenge: why and where to start
30 Day Challenges create energy around “trying something different” every day for 30 days.
Morgan Spurlock, the filmmaker behind Super Size Me, showed how fundamental behavioural shifts can
occur for individuals and teams by creating small, consistent changes over a 30-day period. Taking small
actions together also builds social energy and, in turn, confidence to tackle bigger challenges as a team.
To get started:
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Pin a large 30 day calendar on a wall in the maternity unit, with 30
boxes, one box for every day.
Add a small action or activity for each day, which builds to making
a big change over the 30 days.
Mark a red tick in each box once the team completes the activity.
The template on the next slide can be adapted to get you started.

6. 30 Day Challenge: Joy At Work. October 2019
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
1
Start your Ambassador
journey by joining the
Virtual Forum:
2
Leave a happy note for
someone else to find in
your workplace
3
Turn off digital devices
and really listen to
people
4 - Activity Planning
Pick an activity from
this pack & prepare for
it: time, location,
attendees etc.(Part 1/3)
5
Count how many
people you smile at
today
6
Make extra cookies or
brownies and share at
work.
7
Give someone positive
feedback from the
heart
8 - Activity Comms
Send out emails to all
those you wish to invite
to your event with
information on the
activity (Part 2/3)
9
Showcase someone
when they’re not
expecting it
10 - Activity Planning
Pick your secondary
activity from this pack
and prepare for it: time,
location, attendees etc.
(Part 1/3)
11
Invite a junior
employee to a meeting
they’d learn from
12
Send some nice
comments on social
media, including
#FutureMidwifery
13
Create a handwritten
card to express thanks
or encouragement
14
Start a meeting with a
positive rant on
someone
15 Activity Comms
Send out emails to all
those you wish to invite
to your second activity
(Part 2/3)
16
Make a plan to
socialise. This can be
during a lunch break,
after work or a team
Parkrun
17
Buy lunch for someone
just trying to get by
18
Ask how someone’s
doing - and mean it.
Maybe even listen to
them & ask questions
19
Say something positive
to everyone you meet
today
20
Do a good deed to
bring a smile to
someone’s day
21 - Activity Event
Run your chosen
activity! (Part 3/3)
22
Tell a peer what
they’ve taught you
23
Do something helpful
for a colleague at work
24
Check in with someone
from your last job
25
Set up a reverse
mentoring conversation
26
Find ways to bring joy
to yourself today
27
Do an act of kindness
28
Call a work colleague
who you haven’t
spoken to in a while
29
Give a favourite book
to a someone who
deserves it
30 - Activity Event
Run your second
chosen activity! (Part
3/3)
31 Trick or Treat it’s
Halloween take some
sweets or goodies to
your workplace
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Inspired by Action for Happiness

7. Here’s some activities to help
you create joy at work 7
#FutureMidwifery
Picture courtesy of Highield Midwives, Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS FT

8. Host a
Mad Hatter’s
Tea Party
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9. 9
Hosting your Mad Hatter’s Tea Party
A Mad Hatter’s Tea Party allows you to bring people’s positive energy into gathering ideas and views,
making people’s insights visible more quickly.
Source: Liberating Structures
You will need:
● Plenty of room for people to stand up in a big circle and to move
around easily
● A set of open-ended statements (see some ideas to get you going
on the next slide)
This is how to host yours:
1. Ask everyone in the group to form two concentric circles, standing
directly across from another person, face to face
2. Explain that the pairs will take it in turns; one person completes
the sentence on the screen while the other expresses keen
interest and curiosity for 30 seconds and then swap roles
3. Signal when 1 minute is up and ask participants to move two
spaces to the right
4. Repeat steps 2-4 for each additional open sentence

10. Here are some ideas to get you started:
You can use the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party to make connections across maternity services, to explore an issue on which you’d
like to gain consensus, or simply to connect with colleagues in a new way. Here are a few open-ended statements to help
you shape your own:
● What first inspired me to be a midwife is …
● What I find challenging in our current maternity service is…
● Something we should stop doing is…
● A big opportunity I see for our profession is…
● A courageous conversation we are not having is…
● One thing that would make a big difference is…
● Something we need to research/explore more is…
● A bold idea I recommend is…
● A question that is emerging for me is…
● Something I plan to do is...
Tip:
A Mad Hatter’s Tea Party can get very loud! Be sure you have a bell or another device to get everyone’s attention when it’s
time to move on. 10

11. 11
Take 15 seconds,
Save 30 minutes

12. Take 15 seconds to Save 30 minutes (15s30m)
15 seconds, 30 minutes (15s30m for short) is a way to encourage us to identify small tasks that we could
do right now which will save someone else 30 minutes (or more!), reducing frustration and increasing joy
in work.
Here are some ideas for you:
● Fill in the red book before discharge
● Take booking packs out into the community with you
● Compile a list for the paediatricians to complete for the newborns in the morning
● Regardless of your shift, complete blood forms and put them in the notes ready for the morning
● If you take the last bag of IV fluids then replace the box
● Replace the batteries in a piece of kit when the warning light is flashing
You can find more ideas here: http://15s30m.co.uk/
Share your ideas:
Post a tweet or write a blog about your mission. Let Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent know what you have been doing 12

13. Run a
Randomised Coffee Trial
(RCT)
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14. Running your own RCT
As Midwives, we know you are busy people. Finding the time to have meaningful interactions with heavy workloads,
electronic systems and shift patterns is increasingly difficult. A Randomised Coffee Trial (RCT) is a simple but powerful idea
that was invented by Nesta, an independent charity. People are paired up at random and given the opportunity to have a cup
of coffee and a chat together either physically or virtually.
You will need:
● A list of people who are taking part
● A spreadsheet or sheet of names to match partners (you can match in pairs or triads)
Here’s how to host yours:
1. Decide on whether you are going to run your RCT during an existing meeting or across the whole service, including
your Head of Midwifery/Head of Service
a. If a physical meeting, ask the organiser to build time into the agenda and to let you have the attendees’ names
in advance
b. If virtually, you will need the email addresses for everyone taking part so that you can connect the partners
together
2. Make a list of participants or put names individually into a hat and match everyone with a coffee mate
3. Introduce the partners to each other and ask them to arrange a convenient time to have a conversation
4. Encourage feedback and suggest the partners share their experience on Twitter with key connections (See slide 17)
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15. Join the countrywide Midwifery Ambassadors RCT
As a Midwifery Ambassador we are inviting you to join the national Randomised Coffee Trial.
You will be randomly paired with a fellow midwifery ambassador and we will introduce you by email to your coffee mate
(although other beverages are available!). When you connect you can arrange to have your conversation face- to-face, by
phone, or by FaceTime/Skype/Zoom, wherever makes best sense for you both.
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”
“
Randomised Coffee Trials are
such a simple but powerful way
of getting meaningful
connections going which can
lead to real change.
Helen Bevan, Chief Transformation Officer,
NHS Horizons

16. Sharing your Joy at Work activities
We hope you enjoy this Challenge. Be brave and try something new and remember to tell us about it!
Here are some things that you can do to share your joy at work and get more people involved:
● Tweet about your activities using #FutureMidwifery: include a picture and tag others to amplify your messages (eg your
Trust’s account, your Senior Midwifery leads and colleagues). Include national leads too. Here are some key Twitter
accounts:
Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent @DunkleyBent, Claire Mathews @Midwife_Claire Yana Richens @YanaRichens,
Helen Bevan @HelenBevan, Horizons @HorizonsNHS Bev Matthews @BevMatthewsRN
● Involve your Trust’s communications team. Get them involved in promoting your activities, before and afterwards
● Make an appointment with your Head of Midwifery/Service Lead and ask them to take part
● Get a regular slot at your local Midwifery team meeting to talk about your plans
● Write a blog! Contact Bev.Matthews@nhs.net for help
Thank you for taking part in this month’s Challenge - we look forward to
hearing about your experiences!
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