Your experience can shape the profession’s future: take part in FEDANT’s Views and Issues consultation
Every day, Antenatal Educators, Postnatal Practitioners, Breastfeeding Counsellors, Infant Feeding Practitioners, Doulas, and Education Providers in the antenatal and postnatal sector are working alongside families and make decisions that affect the quality of support people receive. They also see what policy documents can miss: where standards work well, where pathways into practice become confusing, and where families or practitioners encounter avoidable barriers. Those insights deserve a place in decisions that affect the profession.
FEDANT’s Views and Issues consultation is an exceptional opportunity to bring that knowledge into the conversations that shape the profession. We are inviting Students, Registrants, Education Providers, Commissioners and other Stakeholders to tell us what they see, what needs attention and what should be protected. Your response will help inform FEDANT’s conversations with Government, Healthcare Bodies and Service Commissioners, strengthening how we represent the profession with evidence drawn from lived professional experience rather than assumption.
Why your contribution matters now
FEDANT engages with Government, governmental bodies and other organisations whose decisions affect the antenatal and postnatal field. Some work within healthcare; others influence education, consumer information, employment, commissioning, business practice or professional oversight. The questions they ask often cross those boundaries. What makes a qualification a credible route into practice? How can the public identify appropriately prepared practitioners? What barriers prevent capable people from entering or remaining in the profession? Where do current arrangements leave students, practitioners or families exposed to confusion?
FEDANT can make a stronger contribution to those discussions when it can explain both the scale of an issue and the different ways it is experienced. A concern raised by one practitioner may point to a wider pattern. A provider may show how a good standard can be met in practice. A commissioner may identify an obstacle that individual practitioners cannot see. Each perspective adds a piece of the picture.
This consultation is designed to gather those pieces systematically. It will help FEDANT distinguish recurring problems from isolated incidents, recognise effective practice, and identify priorities for its own work. It can also help us develop more grounded recommendations when we speak with public bodies, regulators and partners. Taking part is a meaningful way to influence the substance of that representation.
Questions that reflect your role
The consultation begins by asking in which capacity you are responding. You can select more than one: Registrant or practitioner, FEDANT-accredited education provider, education provider without FEDANT accreditation, service commissioner, or another stakeholder. If you work across several areas, your response can reflect that breadth. The questionnaire then presents questions relevant to the capacities you select and, where appropriate, to answers you give along the way. You will not be expected to answer every question in the full question bank.
For practitioners, the consultation explores the realities of professional practice: the services you provide, how you describe your role, professional development, standards, registration, public understanding and obstacles to delivering good support. It invites you to identify what helps you work well and what makes the path harder. Your experience with families, colleagues and services is evidence that no desk-based review can fully supply.
For accredited and other education providers, the questions look at course design, assessment, accreditation choices, student information and routes from learning into practice. They consider how clearly prospective students understand what an award can and cannot lead to, and how providers support graduates after completion. These details matter when FEDANT discusses education standards, truthful course descriptions and fair progression into the profession.
Commissioners are asked about service needs, procurement, quality expectations and how practitioners are selected and supported. Other stakeholders, including employers, students, recent graduates, representative bodies, researchers and people who use services, can contribute views suited to their position. The questionnaire includes questions about access, public information, oversight and collaboration. This structure allows different voices to be heard on their own terms, while revealing where their experiences connect.
More than a list of concerns
We want to hear what is working as well as what needs to change. Strong education, thoughtful professional practice and constructive partnerships deserve to be understood and recognised. They offer examples that can inform guidance and give substance to FEDANT’s conversations with decision makers.
Equally, difficult experiences should be described clearly. Students and graduates may have been uncertain about whether a course supports registration. Practitioners may encounter inconsistent expectations or gaps in public understanding. Providers may face demands that are poorly aligned with the realities of teaching and assessment. Commissioners may struggle to compare services or identify appropriate standards. Your account can help FEDANT understand the practical consequences behind those issues and consider proportionate responses.
The consultation also asks about FEDANT’s own work. Which activities should we strengthen? Where should we communicate more clearly, improve a process or engage more closely with the profession? Representation has to remain accountable to the people it is intended to serve. Your answers can shape our priorities as well as the positions we take into external discussions.
A voice that reaches beyond one setting
The antenatal and postnatal professions do not sit neatly within a single institution. Many practitioners work independently or across community, private and public services. Education providers prepare people for a range of roles. Families experience those services as one journey, even when responsibilities are divided among several bodies.
That is why FEDANT’s engagement must reach beyond healthcare alone. Questions about course marketing may belong in discussions about education and consumer protection. Questions about workforce access may matter to employers and commissioners. Questions about professional boundaries and accountability may matter to healthcare partners and regulatory bodies. A well evidenced professional voice can connect those conversations and explain how decisions in one area affect people in another.
Your contribution makes that voice more accurate. It can show where different parts of the profession agree, where experiences vary, and where further dialogue is needed. FEDANT will not claim that one response speaks for everyone. The value comes from listening across roles and using the resulting evidence with care.
Please take part
As we invite more than 3,000 Registrants, education providers and stakeholders to contribute, we are asking for your considered view of the profession as it is today and the profession you want to help build. You do not need to have a major complaint or a fully formed policy proposal. Clear examples, constructive suggestions and honest observations are all valuable.
Take time to select the capacities in which you are responding, follow the questions relevant to you and tell us what you believe matters most. Where the consultation offers space for written comments, explain the context behind your answer. That detail can make the difference between identifying a problem and understanding how to address it.
This is your opportunity to make your experience count in FEDANT’s work with Government, governmental and regulatory bodies, and partners across and beyond healthcare. Help us speak with the depth, clarity and authority that this profession deserves.
