Essential Skills for Facilitating Group Care

Abstract

Facilitating group care successfully necessitates learning a range of essential skills including managing group dynamics, active listening, facilitating participant-led discussions and interactive activities. Developing these skills requires training, practice, confidence and a good dose of humility. Unlearning the role of midwife as expert is necessary to flatten hierarchy and draw out the expertise of the women/birthing people in order to enhance participants’ learning. This can feel challenging and anti-intuitive for midwives trained and practising in didactic systems. In this article we explore how developing the inter-personal skills required for group care facilitation can enhance the role of the midwife.