Midwifery team receives Gold award for inclusive education work
6 May 2026
The Midwifery team has been awarded Gold accreditation through the Diverse Cymru Cultural Competence Scheme, recognising its strong commitment to inclusive education and anti-racist practice.
The award was formally presented on 16 April 2026, and the team was proud to be the only institution to receive a Gold award at this year’s ceremony.
The programme, led by Sian McLaughlin, Senior Lecturer and Programme Lead for Midwifery, joined the Diverse Cymru Cultural Competence Scheme in July 2023. Since then, staff and students have worked together to develop learning and teaching that better reflects cultural diversity and supports everyone to feel valued, respected and able to succeed.
The scheme supports organisations to understand unconscious bias and develop cultural competence, leading to better experiences for staff, students and service users. This work has been particularly important in strengthening support for Global Majority students and staff within midwifery.
Over the past two years, the midwifery teaching team has worked closely with Diverse Cymru to deepen its understanding of inequality, anti-racism and culture. This learning has shaped changes across the programme, from how students are recruited, to curriculum design, assessment methods and practice placements, which make up 50% of midwifery training.
A key aim of the work has been to align the programme with the Anti‑Racist Wales Action Plan and the Royal College of Midwives’ Decolonising the Curriculum toolkit. Together, these approaches have helped to increase diversity within the student body and improve support for all members of the midwifery community.
The impact is already clear. In the September 2023 intake, 3.3% of midwifery students identified as Black, Asian or from ethnically diverse backgrounds. By September 2025, this figure had increased to 15%.
The work has also had an important clinical focus. Evidence from national maternity safety reviews has consistently shown higher risks of maternal death for women from Black, Asian and ethnically diverse backgrounds. Preparing student midwives to recognise signs of deterioration in women and babies across all skin tones is now a central part of teaching, helping to promote safer and more effective care.
“We were really pleased to receive this award, which reflects the care, commitment and collective effort of the midwifery team over the past three years. We see this recognition not as an endpoint, but as an important milestone in our continuing journey towards anti‑racism, decolonisation and cultural competence. We’re grateful to Diverse Cymru for their support and for acknowledging this work as we continue to learn, reflect and grow as a community.”
The midwifery team will continue to build on this work, ensuring that future midwives are well prepared to care for women and babies from all backgrounds, and helping to improve outcomes for families across Wales.
Find out more about Midwifery at Cardiff University.