13. Reporting, evaluating and celebrating success
Reporting your successes is important for everyone who has taken part in the project, and for your sponsors and funders. The celebration event is attended by all project participants and others from your organisation so that you can share what you have achieved and it can be an opportunity to encourage others to take part in the next project you do!
New Beginnings made changes that meant the process of “normal” birth was mirrored as far as possible in the theatre. This included things such as, choices in the environment, or how the parents discovered the sex of their baby. It meant greater sensitivity to the dignity of women on their way to theatre and once inside the theatre.
There were changes to the clinical processes because of the project also. For example, reviewing the length of time the women were “nil by mouth”, having heard the story from one mother who had been without fluids for many hours on one of the hottest days of the summer. “I was crying, and it sounds stupid now, I was so thirsty I tried to drink my tears.”
“You said, we did….”
The New Beginnings project used posters which described the changes made, clearly linked to what women and staff had said in their interview.
Finally, Andrew leaves us with some final thoughts about the things he wished he had known at the start of New Beginnings, and the things he learned along the way.