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Blog Archive
- ► 2023 (8)
- ► 2022 (88)
- ► 2021 (54)
Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) Australia
August 2020
We at Step 2 Education International Inc., wish to let you know we are aware of the changes made to the standards described in the 2018 Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) Implementation Guidance (WHO 2018). We are also aware of the 2020 BFHI Australia Maternity Facility Handbook and the section related to Step 2 where ”training personnel focuses on competency assessment to ensure that all personnel have the knowledge, competence and skills to support breastfeeding.”
Our team is solely focused on Baby-Friendly Education, and as such, changes from WHO/UNICEF are of the utmost importance to us and our clients all over the world.
Earlier this year, we updated our courses to be in line with the language changes relevant to the revised 2018 Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. As of August 5th, 2020 the most recent WHO/UNICEF BFHI documents have become available.
We now have put a team together to rework our courses to bring them fully in line with these new BFHI documents. The international BFHI changes include an increase in the hours of education from 20 to 22 hours of learning and practice. This is significantly more than the recommended 8 hours in the 2020 BFHI Australia Maternity Facility Handbook. The goal of our education is to help enable staff to develop competency skills and effective counseling skills, so as to help build maternal confidence. This will help ensure consistent messages and implement standards that protect, promote, and support breastfeeding.
The International guidelines for the assessment of competencies with measurable tools also became available on August 5th, 2020. These guidelines and other documents are available within our courses. We will continue to deliver our education program that provides staff with evidence-based lactation information so they can ensure best practice to families they are caring for.
We have a solid base education program and we will be working on an updated program of 8 hours for Australian facilities. We are aware this is a significant shortfall in BFHI education hours in comparison to the international standards and should any Australian facilities prefer to enroll their staff into our updated 22 hour BFHI course when it becomes available, they will be welcome to do so.
This is a significant change from the original 20-hour requirement of training hours as an indicator of competency assessment to assure competency through a more rigorous measure of actual performance in clinical practice.
It is important to recognise that with the new guidelines, the competency skills are to be verified through direct observation of the staff’s clinical practice. Step 2 Education International Inc. can provide the relevant education yet your facilities will need to provide the relevant supervised clinical experience.
Our current 20-hour course covers all the knowledge-base of the 20 core competencies indicated in the 2020 BFHI Australia Maternity Facility Handbook yet, as mentioned above, the new request is now to provide this education in 8 hours. This is what we at Step 2 Education International Inc. will be working on in the coming months. The WHO International competency tool kit for measuring the competencies are available and can be used with staff when they are being evaluated by their local BFHI hospital facilitator.
“Full competency is attained through combining knowledge and skills with sound clinical judgment and a positive attitude. Training programs, however excellent, do not assure the combination of knowledge, skills, clinical judgment, and positive attitude.” (MacEnroe 2020).
We do our best to accommodate all our International clients and rest assured we will do our best for our Australian clients. We look forward to continuing to provide a solid up-to-date and evidence-based BFHI education program to your staff.
Lenore Goldfarb
Ph.D., CCC, IBCLC, ALC
Director & Professional
Development Educator
Carole Dobrich
B.Sc, RN, IBCLC, ANLC
Director & Professional
Development Educator
Step 2 Education International Inc.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H4A 1G2
Courriel
This Privacy Policy describes how your personal information is collected, used, and shared when you visit or make a purchase from https://step2education.com (the "Site").
PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT
When you visit the Site, we automatically collect certain information about your device, including information about your web browser, IP address, time zone, and some of the cookies that are installed on your device. Additionally, as you browse the Site, we collect information about the individual web pages or products that you view, what websites or search terms referred you to the Site, and information about how you interact with the Site. We refer to this automatically-collected information as Device Information."
We collect Device Information using the following technologies:
- "Cookies" are data files that are placed on your device or computer and often include an anonymous unique identifier. For more information about cookies, and how to disable cookies, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org.
- "Log files" track actions occurring on the Site, and collect data including your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, referring/exit pages, and date/time stamps.
- "Web beacons," "tags," and "pixels" are electronic files used to record information about how you browse the Site.
Additionally when you make a purchase or attempt to make a purchase through the Site, we collect certain information from you, including your name, billing address, shipping address, payment information (including credit card numbers), email address, and phone number. We refer to this information as "Order Information."
- Users who are undertaking a course as part of a group or organization have certain data tracked as part of the service we provide to Clients and Facilitators. This includes information showing if you have logged in and when, dates of completion and what and when particular study topics, resources and assessments were viewed and completed. We refer to this information as "Student Access Information"
When we talk about "Personal Information" in this Privacy Policy, we are talking about Device Information, Order Information and Student Access Information.
HOW DO WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?
We use the Order Information that we collect generally to fulfill any orders placed through the Site (including processing your payment information, arranging for shipping, and providing you with invoices and/or order confirmations). Additionally, we use this Order Information to:
- Communicate with you;
- Screen our orders for potential risk or fraud; and
- When in line with the preferences you have shared with us, provide you with information or advertising relating to our products or services.
We use Student Access Information to provide accurate tracking to Users and Clients on completion and use of the courses, as well as for analysis on how to improve our services.
We use the Device Information that we collect to help us screen for potential risk and fraud (in particular, your IP address), and more generally to improve and optimize our Site (for example, by generating analytics about how our customers browse and interact with the Site, and to assess the success of our marketing and advertising campaigns).
SHARING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
We share your Personal Information with third parties to help us use your Personal Information, as described above. For example, with your employer who needs to verify your completion or progress of your studies. We also use Google Analytics to help us understand how our customers use the Site--you can read more about how Google uses your Personal Information here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/. You can also opt-out of Google Analytics here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Finally, we may also share your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other lawful request for information we receive, or to otherwise protect our rights.
BEHAVIOURAL ADVERTISING
As described above, we use your Personal Information to provide you with targeted advertisements or marketing communications we believe may be of interest to you. For more information about how targeted advertising works, you can visit the Network Advertising Initiative's ("NAI") educational page at https://www.networkadvertising.org/understanding-online-advertising/how-does-it-work.
You can opt out of targeted advertising by:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=ads
- Google: https://www.google.com/settings/ads/anonymous
Additionally, you can opt out of some of these services by visiting the Digital Advertising Alliance's opt-out portal at: http://optout.aboutads.info.
DO NOT TRACK
Please note that we do not alter our Site's data collection and use practices when we see a Do Not Track signal from your browser.
YOUR RIGHTS
If you are a European resident, you have the right to access personal information we hold about you and to ask that your personal information be corrected, updated, or deleted. If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us through the contact information below.
Additionally, if you are a European resident we note that we are processing your information in order to fulfill contracts we might have with you (for example if you make an order through the Site), or otherwise to pursue our legitimate business interests listed above. Additionally, please note that your information will be transferred outside of Europe, including to Canada and the United States.
DATA RETENTION
When you place an order through the Site, we will maintain your Order Information and Student Access Information for our records unless and until you ask us to delete this information. We are required to keep course completion records for at least 5 years in order to comply with certain accreditation requirements.
CHANGES
We may update this privacy policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to our practices or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons.
CONTACT US
For more information about our privacy practices, if you have questions, or if you would like to make a complaint, please contact us by e-mail at [email protected] or by mail using the details provided below:
5890 Monkland Avenue, #16, Montreal, QC, H4A 1G2, Canada
Last Updated: September 2018