Collenn Conway-Welch
Conway-Welch receives public advocacy award
Colleen Conway-Welch, dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, will receive the NACC Public Advocate Award in recognition of her advocacy efforts to increase access and choices of care to mothers and babies during a national conference Saturday, Sept. 8 in Phoenix, Arizona.
The achievement award will be presented at the 17th Annual National Association of Childbearing Centers (NACC) Award Luncheon.
Conway-Welch, Ph.D., CNM, MSN, was selected to receive the award for her advocacy at local, state and national levels developing policy and research for the advancement of these issues, including birth centers.
“She has devoted a significant amount of her time and career to the advancement of the teaching mission of nurse-midwives and has been responsible in the establishment of the nurse-midwifery program in the Vanderbilt School of Nursing,” reads her nomination form. “She is an advocate for and has been appointed to local, state and national committees and boards developing policy and research around funding and reimbursement of advanced practice nurses.”
Conway-Welch, dean of the School of Nursing since 1984, is the principal investigator for the $5.1 million W.K. Kellogg-Vanderbilt Project to develop birth centers in Tennessee using the NACC Model of Midwifery Care based on a shared management systems organization (MSO), which is used by all the birth centers. The MSO concept may also have implications for nurse-practitioner community-based clinics.
The NACC is a non-profit membership organization founded by the Maternity Center Association under a grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation of New York. For more than a decade, the NACC has been the nation’s most comprehensive resource on birth centers.