Spotlight on Hawthorne Midwives: Tips to mobilize and leverage political support in your region
July 24, 2024
Featured photo: Hawthorne Midwives (Left to right: Karin Sundararajan, Faiza Abdullah, Lynn Hendrick and Clinic Administrator Uzma Javaid), accompanied by client Salha Aziz and her children, assemble at Halton Regional Council to present evidence in support of the expansion of midwifery services.
“We just couldn’t afford to hear NO anymore,” says Lynn Hendricks, RM and practice partner of Hawthorne Midwives, on the impetus to develop an advocacy strategy and media campaign to bring attention to their need for increased midwifery staffing and caseload funding. In response to repeated barriers, including denied requests for additional billable courses of care (BCCs) and diminished funding for hiring new registrant midwives, Hawthorne Midwives took a stand, tabling proposals with their transfer payment agency (TPA), local council, and Minister of Health for urgent expansion to meet community demand.
On May 22, 2024, after months of community and regional advocacy, Hawthorne Midwives celebrated a significant milestone in their campaign. Halton Regional Council passed a resolution championing the expansion of access to midwifery services. The resolution was supported unanimously, underscoring the urgent need for expanded maternity services in Milton and Northwest Mississauga.
Here are five top tips for midwives looking to mobilize community support:
1. Develop Key Messaging
Whether working on your own or with a hired professional, key messaging is everything.
In their campaign to advocate for growth, Hawthorne Midwives hired a consultant to help them craft an effective strategy. The first steps involved setting key objectives for the campaign, identifying primary stakeholders and analyzing demographics within their catchment. They were able to distill the context of their work, the current barriers to service provision, and the key actions to promote their strategic aims and key messages. These messages could be shared to a broad base of stakeholders, including elected officials, Ministry of Health staff, funders, clients, unaccommodated clients, hospital management and other allies.
2. Do your research: have data accessible to back your claims
Make sure that your advocacy is evidence-based and has a solid rationale.
Hawthorne Midwives worked diligently to support the campaign with evidence-based analysis, including BORN statistics from 2017-22, and a tracking list with hundreds of unaccommodated care requests. They prepared a full briefing with regional statistics demonstrating the trending demographics of population growth, accelerated birth rate and proportion of constituents of reproductive age within their catchment area.
Hawthorne effectively demonstrated a gap in the current health-care system to attend to underserved communities, including newcomers to Canada and uninsured clientele, and positioned their practice and the model of midwifery care to best fill that need. The MPG made the information available in several formats including an official briefing, a slide deck and social media posts.
3. Include relationship-building into your business plan
Consider relationships with politicians across all levels of government when planning events and in your communications.
From its inception, Hawthorne has been engaged in political networking and relationship building. The mayor of Milton celebrated the opening of the clinic alongside the midwives. Multiple members of government have been invited to the clinic space to share a cup of tea and cookies while discussing the scope of midwifery practice and the value added to the health-care system and affirming shared goals of ensuring excellence in perinatal care to the families of Halton region. Members from the Halton Regional Council toured the clinic space, noting how “safe” it felt.
Hawthorne midwives have been able to draw on these relationships for advocacy, awareness and recourse to escalate their cause.
4. Lean into your community connectors
Don’t be afraid to utilize your social capital.
Uzma Javaid, Hawthorne’s Clinic Administrator, has strong roots in her community through her previous career and volunteer work with the non-profit sector, and through personal relationships in the community. Uzma was instrumental in introducing the practice to the local council and disseminating the campaign through her network.
5. Spread your message far and wide
Rely on multiple forms of media to spread your messaging – get creative!
To gather support for their expansion, Hawthorne Midwives used a number of advocacy methods. They sent a petition to current and past clients, posted QR codes linking to their petition in all areas of the hospital and saturated their website and social media with information and ways to send testimonials to the Hon. Sylvia Jones, deputy premier of Ontario, health minister and MPP for Dufferin-Caledon. Hawthorne Midwives collected 1800 signatures of clients supporting their midwives.
Hawthorne’s campaign effectively galvanized political support. The resolution, proposed by Sameera Ali, Halton Regional Councilor and seconded by Gordon Krantz, Mayor of Milton, reads:
- The Halton Regional Council encourages Halton Midwifery organizations to continue working with their local Transfer Payment Agency as part of the annual budget process to address pressures and service demand from population growth.
- The Regional Chair will write a letter to the Provincial Minister of Health, emphasizing the importance of ensuring adequate provincial allocation of billable courses of care to meet the increasing service demand in Halton.
- A copy of the resolution will be sent to Halton MPPs, local municipalities, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and the Association of Ontario Midwives.
Hawthorne Midwives continues to engage in their campaign to advocate for their needs. The Council resolution has helped at every step of the way. “We love what we do!” Lynn emphasizes. “We want to demonstrate to the community and the Ministry of Health that we are a worthwhile investment. We just need a little support.”
For more information about Hawthorne Midwives and to show your support, please visit News | Hawthorne Midwives
Want more tools in building out your campaign? Visit these useful AOM links: