Meet The Lead

Hello my name is Samantha Thompson. I am the Lead for Walsall’s Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership. I first got involved with the MNVP after having my first child in 2015 and I wanted to give feedback to improve services for myself and other families in Walsall.

In 2022 I became a service user for the second time when my daughter was born at Walsall Manor Hospital. I helped to set up the MNVP in 2016 and became the Chairperson later that year.

For the past 6 years, I have been passionate about listening to feedback from families and feeding this back into the service to drive change. I have been particularly keen to coproduce services with the families that use those services and ensure that these services represent the diversity of Walsall

Hello my name is Alicia Henry. After an informative debrief regarding my first child’s birth, led by the Director of Midwifery at Walsall Manor, I got involved with the MNVP as a volunteer to help shape and make a positive change to the maternity services offered locally.

In 2021, I gave birth to my second child at Walsall Manor and the following year I became the Co-Chair for Walsall’s Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership. The journey of maternity was a special and exciting time for myself and my growing family, however it was also loaded with worry due to research that blames racial discrimination, stereotypes and cultural barriers, to black women been four times more likely to die during or up to the first six weeks after pregnancy than white women, (UK Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths, published in 2019).

It is important to me to listen to the service users’ voices and collaborate with the maternity department at Walsall Manor to implement effective change that will improve experiences. I am particularly keen to ensure that these services represent the voice of all.

Meet The Members

I’m Megan Schubert (most people call me Meg) and I’m the Specialist Midwife for Infant Feeding at Walsall Manor Hospital. I am the lead for the implementation of the Baby Friendly Initiative across Maternity and oversee the project in the Neonatal Unit too. I am also responsible for training staff across both areas to the Baby Friendly Standards and ensuring staff are trained in Infant Feeding.

I have lots of other responsibilities too including running a specialist support service for families, reviewing incidents, auditing staff support and ensuring parents are supported to develop close and loving relationships with their babies.

I have been qualified as a midwife for 5 years and have worked all those years at Walsall. I started in the Delivery Suite and Postnatal Wards before moving out to the community as a Community Midwife. I have been in post as a Specialist Midwife for Infant Feeding for nearly 2 years, and my love of Infant Feeding was my motivation for training as a midwife, having volunteered as a breastfeeding peer support worker shortly after my daughter was born.

I’m involved with the MNVP as I know how important it is to listen to the voices of the families that use our services, to ensure that we are meeting their needs and making their journey to becoming parents or expanding their families a little bit easier.

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