Valerie Tickner is a midwife, educationalist and former Director of Education at the Royal College of Midwives (RCM). She qualified as an SRN at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary in 1958, completed her SCM at Coventry Maternity Hospital, then took her Midwife Teaching Diploma at Birmingham Maternity Hospital in 1970. She later went on to obtain a Masters in Management of Change from the University of Surrey. Her career progressed rapidly from Staff Nurse, through a variety of teaching roles, to her appointment as Director of Education at RCM in 1982. Throughout her career she has played an active role in the development of her profession, both within the UK and internationally, acting as Advisor on midwifery education and practice to the Government of Ontario, Indonesia and Botswana and taking a leading role in the International Confederation of Midwives. She was Associate Editor of the International Journal of Midwifery and is currently a Vice-President of the Royal College of Midwives.
In 1999 Valerie Tickner was made an Honorary Fellow of the University.
"The Senate of Anglia Polytechnic University has great pleasure in recommending the award of an Honorary Fellowship of the University to Valerie Joan Tickner, MSc, RGM, MTD, International Consultant in Midwifery Education.
This award is made in recognition of Valerie's commitment to and support of the work of the School of Healthcare Practice and Field Midwifery at APU. Her work here has seen the introduction of the innovative Culture and Caring module for Pre-Registration Student Midwives. During the last five years, Valerie's tireless efforts to develop substantial international resources and to promote and maintain international links through projects related to Reproductive Health and Safe Motherhood have uniquely advanced the cause of sound, safe motherhood in an international context.
Valerie served as a senior tutor in several of this country's leading schools of midwifery before being appointed to the Royal College of Midwives, London, where she aspired to the post of Director of Education. She obtained her initial nursing qualification of RGC (SRN as was) at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary in 1958, undertook her specialist midwifery RM (SCM as was) at the City Maternity Hospital, Carlisle and Coventry Maternity Hospital and qualified for her Midwife Teaching Diploma in 1970 at the Birmingham Maternity Hospital. She obtained a Master's degree in the area of Management of Change at the University of Surrey, the title of her dissertation was "The international consultant as an agent of change in a cross-cultural situation" and, meanwhile, she completed a Diploma in Counselling Skills. It was her international experience which raised her awareness of the desperate need for healthcare professionals, especially midwives, to be trained in counselling skills, appropriate to their cultural setting, as an integral dimension to the best practice of midwifery. Indeed, it is an aspect of Valerie's unassuming nature that despite her many titles and honours, the promotion and acquisition of these skills remains her greatest delight.
It is evident that during her career development from Staff Nurse to Director of Education and international consultant, Valerie has benefited from wide experience within the UK and during her time at the RCM, established the first Masters Programme for midwives in the UK and Europe. However, as we have seen, she has also an outstanding record of international experience, from Advisor to the Government of Ontario, Canada, on midwifery education, practice, research and legislation, through contribution to, advising on and organising of various European midwifery research workshops in Germany, The Netherlands and Spain. Consulting governments on midwifery issues in a number of African countries - Botswana, Sierra Leone and Tanzania - taking a leading role in the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), WHO and UNICEF jointly sponsored Pre-Congress Workshop on 'Education for Safe Motherhood' in Japan and consulting over several years for the Ministry of Health in Indonesia, including the establishment of international educational links with the Royal College of Midwives and the University of Surrey.
Concurrent with her UK and foreign teaching and training, advising and administrating responsibilities, Valerie has played a series of leadership roles within the profession. These include Vice-President of the Royal College of Midwives, Associate Editor of the International Journal of Midwifery, Committee Member on the Action for Safe Motherhood at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Member of the Steering Committee at the Centre for Research in Nursing and Midwifery Education of the University of Surrey, and chaired and been involved with a variety of health-related committees and councils within the UK.
Valerie is also the author of a number of professional publications, contributor to various books, international lecturer and has been an examiner for 8 different UK universities and member of diverse national statutory bodies.
It is therefore, Vice Chancellor, because of her exceptional and meritorious service to the School of Healthcare Practice and Field Midwifery at APU over many years and her outstanding national and international contribution to midwifery education that I invite you to confer on this special lady, Valerie Joan Tickner, MSc, RGM, MTD, the award of Honorary Fellow of this University."