Catalogue 07-08: Apprenticeship
Please note that this is the March 2007 version of the 2007-2008 Catalogue. Information within is accurate as of this date. Subject to change without notice.
Apprenticeship Placement Assistance
Clinical Documentation Requirements
High Volume Birth Services/Sites
Credit Requirements
The apprenticeship experience is a crucial part of midwifery education. Midwifery is a unique profession and the specialized training provided through apprenticing with an experienced midwife is a significant source of student knowledge.
Birthingway students shall not attend births in any capacity other than as a labor Doula (emotional and comfort support only) unless under the supervision of an approved preceptor. Before beginning an apprenticeship, students must either attend our Apprenticeship Workshop, or make an appointment with the Student Affairs Coordinator or Faculty Coordinator to go over apprenticeship requirements.
Apprenticeship Placement Assistance
While Birthingway makes every effort to assist students in locating an appropriate midwifery practice, the College does not guarantee availability of an apprenticeship for every student. The College maintains a list of approved preceptors. Students who wish to have Birthingway’s assistance locating an apprenticeship should contact the Faculty Coordinator for an apprenticeship questionnaire. Once completed and on file, Birthingway will forward the completed questionnaire to midwives requesting apprentices. This will be done for all students in a fair and impartial manner.
The Faculty Coordinator will forward all questionnaires on file to the midwife and encourage them to contact the students in a timely manner. At this point, Birthingway is no longer involved in the process. Birthingway will keep the questionnaires on file as long as they remain current. A student should request a new questionnaire if their information changes. The Faculty Coordinator may request new questionnaires after a prolonged period-usually one year. Birthingway will forward all questionnaires on file whenever there is an apprenticeship opening. Birthingway may know of the outcome of an apprenticeship search and may inform the students as a courtesy, but we are not responsible for notification or the outcome once the questionnaires are given to the midwife. Students are encouraged to help with this process by keeping their information and interviews confidential. Students are discouraged from speaking with other students until the process has been finalized and the midwife has made a decision. Students are also encouraged to share their experience of the process with staff so that we can monitor how the midwives are working with the students.
Students need to understand that due to the limited numbers of apprenticeship sites in Portland, Birthingway strongly encourages them to seek apprenticeships in other areas. We have a list of sites in a variety of locations that need help. Please contact the Faculty Coordinator for information.
Every preceptor/apprentice relationship is unique and a student’s preceptor may have additional requirements beyond those of Birthingway. It is up to the student and preceptor to negotiate their own standards. However, students should inform Birthingway of educational issues with their preceptor. For example, if a student feels that a preceptor is not making available to her the guaranteed number of hours of work during the term, Birthingway must be informed. Students should address concerns to the Faculty Coordinator.
Clinical Documentation Requirements
Documentation of clinical experience (experience in the apprentice role observing, assisting and providing supervised primary care for prenatal, labor, birth, postpartum and well-woman gynecological care) is required for graduation from the program. Clinical experiences must be documented in the Client Care Documentation notebook available through the College. This notebook must be submitted for review when you apply for graduation. Students must spend a minimum of twelve months in apprenticeship training.
To graduate, students must attend a minimum of five hospital births in the role of labor doula, 25 births as an assistant and 25 in the supervised primary role. All 25 assists must be planned out-of-hospital births. Planned out-of-hospital births that result in medical transport to a hospital in labor may be counted toward either the five required hospital doula births, OR as an assist or supervised primary. Students may count up a total of 7 hospital transports between the 25 assist births and the 25 primary births, however, no more than 5 transports may be counted in the assist category, and no more than 3 transports can be counted in the primary category. For example, while attending births as an assistant a student attends 6 transports during her 25 birth requirement, but she only has 1 while serving in the primary role. She has a total of 7 transports, but she will only be able to count 5 of the 6 transports she attended while an assistant and will have to attend 1 more birth in the assistant role. Students may count a transport as a continuity of care birth (for the purposes of documenting their primary care) if the newborn exam is completed by the student within 24 hours of birth.
Continuity of care is defined by NARM as a minimum of four prenatal visits, birth, immediate postpartum care, newborn exam, and one postpartum visit by the same birth attendant.
Students who wish to apply for midwifery licensure in any state other than Oregon should discuss their graduation requirements with the Student Affairs Coordinator, as other states may have additional requirements.
High Volume Birth Services / Sites
In the interests of providing the highest quality and most compassionate care possible for the clients working with our apprentices, while remaining true to the midwifery model, Birthingway requires that students complete most of their apprenticeship with midwives who maintain continuity of care within a low volume setting. A practice is considered high volume if it requires an apprentice to attend more than 8 births in any given month (not an average of 8 births a month for the term of the apprenticeship), or average more than 60 hours total of work per week, even if continuity of care is maintained. To prevent interference with class time, first and second year core students may not have more than four clients due in any given month.
50 births are required to complete the program. 25 of those are assists, none of which can be high volume. The remaining 25 are supervised primaries. Of those, the first 5 cannot be high volume. Of the remaining 20, up to 10 can be high volume. If a student has completed her academic work and is working exclusively in her apprenticeship, she may request an exception to the high volume policy after conferring with the Student Affairs Coordinator. To check if a particular program is classified as a high volume birth service, consult the Student Affairs Coordinator or Preceptor Coordinator.
Credit Requirements
A minimum of 20 credits of Apprenticeship are required. Students may choose to take more than the minimum 20 credits, but may take no more than a maximum of 30 in order to prevent Satisfactory Academic Progress conflicts. Each apprenticeship credit is based on a minimum of 30 hours of work, with all work for credit occurring between the first and last days of the term. The credits may be divided among any number of terms, as appropriate to the student’s specific apprenticeship workload. Students should work with their Preceptor and Student Affairs Coordinator to create a plan based on the number of clients/births, length of apprenticeship, and any financial aid concerns.
Each individual Apprenticeship Credit hour is processed separately; however, the credit to be awarded cannot be retroactively adjusted. If a student works more hours than they registered for during the term, the number of credit hours will not be retroactively increased. If a student works fewer hours than agreed, the number of credits hours will not be decreased –any individual credit hours not completed will be graded either “Withdrawn” or “Incomplete” as appropriate, per Birthingway’s standard grading procedure (i.e. If you registered for 3 Apprenticeship Credits, but only worked 50 hours, you would receive one credit hour graded “Complete” and two credit hours graded “Withdrawn”).(See GRADING) Late registration for additional credits is permitted, however, work for all credits must be completed after the student has registered for them (i.e. If you registered on May 5th, you couldn’t count the work you did April 7th – May 4th). No registrations are accepted less than 4 weeks before the last day of the term.
Preceptor / Student Contract
At the time of registration for a term, students in an apprenticeship must indicate if they wish to register for Apprenticeship Credit. These students will be given the necessary forms, including the preceptor/student contract. The preceptor/student contract MUST be signed by all parties and returned to Birthingway for registration to be complete.
In the contract, the preceptor agrees to provide a minimum number of hours of appropriate work for the student during that term. These agreed upon hours are in increments of 30 work hours per Apprenticeship Credit. The preceptor determines the number of work hours, with input from the student. The hours may be estimated based on the number of clients the student will be attending during the term, on past hours worked by the student in the apprenticeship, or by other methods. In signing the contract, the preceptor is guaranteeing, to the extent that they are able, that the minimum hours of appropriate apprenticeship duties will be available during the term.
The student agrees to work the minimum number of hours agreed to in the contract. For each 30 hours of apprenticeship work agreed to, the student will be registered for one apprenticeship credit hour.
Appropriate apprenticeship duties include but are not necessarily limited to the following:
- Direct client care (prenatal visits, labor support, delivery, newborn care, postpartum visits)
- Processing lab work
- Filing of client information
- Charting
- Typing birth certificates
- Cleaning and maintaining clinic/office space
- Ordering/purchasing supplies
- Writing client information forms
- Maintaining client library
- Replenishing supplies to prenatal and birth bags
- Sterilizing instruments
- Maintaining equipment
- Staff meetings
- Maintaining medication logs
- Refilling oxygen tanks
Direct client care should constitute at least 75% of the work performed.
Apprenticeship Credit Paperwork
At the time of registration for the term, students in an apprenticeship must indicate if they wish to register for Apprenticeship Credit. These students will first be given the Preceptor/Student Contract (See Above), which must be signed by all parties and returned to Birthingway for registration to be complete.
Birthingway then provides the following forms:
- Two timesheets. Students are responsible for entering the hours they have worked. At the end of the term, the preceptor must sign off on the time sheets, and the student must turn in the timesheets, showing completion of the minimum number of hours, to Birthingway to receive credit.
- One “Evaluation of Preceptor by Student” form. This must be completed and turned in at the end of the term.
- One “Characteristics, Attitude and General Skills Evaluation” form. This must be completed by the preceptor and turned in by the student at the end of the term.
- In addition, the student and preceptor must review the Skill Assessment Checklists and update them with dates and preceptor initials. The student must turn them in at the end of the term.
If all of the documentation above is received and completed by the last day of the term, the student will earn a grade of “Complete.” If any of the documentation is not received by the last day of the term, or is incomplete, the student will earn an “Incomplete” for the apprenticeship credit. If any of the documentation is not received within six weeks of the last day of the term, the grade will be changed to “Withdrawn” per Birthingway standard grading policy. Students may complete a Special Circumstances form for their apprenticeship credit, as with any other college credit.