Professional Development Portfolio

The self-assessment built into the Professional Development Portfolio is designed to assist you as you identify your learning needs and can serve as the foundation for creating your Learning Plan.

Unlike other components of the Professional Development Portfolio (e.g., case review reports), the self-assessment is for your use only and won’t be accessible to, or reviewed by, the College.

Midwives are required to complete and report on the completion of their self-assessment every three years. However, we recommend annual completion to continually assess your knowledge and skills related to the standards of midwifery.

Midwives are welcome to use the Canadian Midwifery Regulators Council self-assessment tool, or any other, to meet the self-assessment requirement in the Portfolio.

(Outil d’auto-évaluation de la pratique sage-femme du CCOSF)

Every three years, you’ll identify learning goals through the self-assessment process, issues brought up during a peer case review, challenges during a client interaction, or a breakdown in communication with another health care provider. Any area of your professional life that requires extra attention can be included as a learning goal in your Learning Plan.

You should aim to meet a minimum of one learning goal per year. You’ll select one short-term goal to be met in the first year of your reporting cycle and two long-term goals to be met in years two and three.

The College does not specify the types of learning goals required. However, midwives are encouraged to choose goals that include both technical skills and non-technical skills.

Case reviews are formal gatherings to discuss specific clinical cases with the goal of learning. The College does not specify the details of how to conduct a case review. However, case reviews should be conducted in accordance with a framework that is agreed upon by all participants.

Additionally, case reviews must be held with at least two midwifery practice groups or among a group of interprofessional colleagues.
Midwives who are registered in the general, supervised practice, or transitional class for 12 months or more are required to attend four case reviews per year of registration, for a total of 12 case reviews attended over the three-year cycle.

Midwives who are registered in the general, supervised practice, or transitional class for less than 12 months of the reporting period are not required to participate in, or obtain evidence of, attendance at case reviews.

Table: required number of case reviews per months in general class

All midwives—including those in the inactive class—will be required to submit a declaration of completion to the College via the Registrant Portal by the reporting deadline.

We can make accommodations for midwives who experience barriers to participating in, or reporting on, their Professional Development Portfolio.

You must submit your first declaration of completion three years after you become registered with the College, as shown below:

After your initial reporting deadline, your Portfolio life cycle will start over, and you’ll be required to submit every three years thereafter.

Each year, 20% of reporting midwives will be selected by the College to have their Portfolio reviewed for completion. Selected midwives will then have 30 days to submit their Portfolio and any supporting documentation such as certificates, diplomas, conference proceedings, or other materials that demonstrate their participation in learning activities.

Midwives who submit their declaration of completion and are not randomly selected for review are considered compliant with the Professional Development Portfolio requirements.

Midwives who submit their declaration of completion and are randomly selected for review and submit complete records by the assigned deadline are considered compliant with the Professional Development Portfolio.

Midwives who are considered compliant will receive a notice of compliance.

Non-compliance

Midwives who do not submit a declaration of completion or who are selected for review and do not submit a completed Professional Development Portfolio will receive a notice of non-compliance and must pay an administrative fee. See Fees and Remuneration By-Law.

Midwives marked non-compliant may make a written submission regarding their non-compliance to the Quality Assurance Committee (QAC) within 30 days of receiving the notice. Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of the QAC.

Exemptions

If you are unable to meet your Professional Development Portfolio requirements due to exceptional circumstances such as illness, parental leave, or disability leave, you can be granted an exemption from any, or all, of the program requirements.

• A full exemption means you would have no reporting obligations for the entire three-year Professional Development Portfolio cycle for which the exemption was requested.
• A partial exemption means you would still be required to complete some, though not all, of the Professional Development Portfolio requirements for the three-year reporting cycle.

Midwives must apply for an exemption at least 15 business days prior to their reporting deadline by submitting an Exemption Request form.

If the exemption is not warranted, the midwife will be considered non-compliant with the Professional Development Portfolio if they remain unable to meet the requirements.

If you are unable to meet your Professional Development Portfolio requirements due to exceptional circumstances such as illness, parental leave, or disability leave, you can be granted an exemption from any, or all, of the program requirements.

• A full exemption means you would have no reporting obligations for the entire three-year Professional Development Portfolio cycle for which the exemption was requested.
• A partial exemption means you would still be required to complete some, though not all, of the Professional Development Portfolio requirements for the three-year reporting cycle.

Midwives must apply for an exemption at least 15 business days prior to their reporting deadline by submitting an Exemption Request form.

If the exemption is not warranted, the midwife will be considered non-compliant with the Professional Development Portfolio if they remain unable to meet the requirements.

This form is designed to identify factors that contributed to a registrant’s ability to meet Quality Assurance Program (QAP) requirements, and to develop a plan to support compliance with QAP requirements in the future.

If the College requires you to complete the Barriers to Compliance form, your responses will be used by the Quality Assurance Committee (QAC) to understand your situation and determine a course of action related to your request for exemption. All information will be confidential and solely used to assess compliance barriers for the QAP. Once completed, please return this form to qap@cmo.on.ca.

You must only fill out this form if directed to do so by the College.

Barriers to Compliance Form

Reporting midwives must declare that they have completed the requirements of their Professional Development Portfolio which include the Self-Assessment, Learning Plan, and Case Review Record (if applicable). If you first registered with the College of Midwives between October 1, 2021 and October 1, 2022, you are due to report in 2025.

You will have the entire renewal period, which opens by August 1, 2025 and closes on October 1, 2025, to submit your declaration.

All midwives who are due to report in 2025 must declare their completion in the Registrant Portal. That is all that is required of reporting midwives prior to October 1, 2025.

Only midwives who are randomly selected for auditing will be required to submit their Learning Plan, Case Review Record, and supporting documentation of completed learning activities to the College of Midwives of Ontario. The College will inform midwives if they have been selected for audit after October 1, 2025.

If selected for audit, you must log in to the Registrant Portal and navigate to the Professional Development Portfolio section to upload your Learning Plan, Case Review Record (if applicable), and supporting documentation of completed learning activities. You will not be required to submit your self-assessment materials.

We recommend saving your supporting documents somewhere that is easy for you to access in case you are chosen for the audit.

If you are not selected for the audit, you are not required to submit your Learning Plan, Case Review record and supporting documentation of completed learning activities to the College in this cycle of the Professional Development Portfolio.

The Professional Development Portfolio Audit is a review process to check that all required components of a midwife’s Professional Development Portfolio are submitted.

The components include the Learning Plan, Case Review Record, and supporting documentation of completed learning activities. The College will only be checking to confirm that all necessary documentation is complete and submitted. We recommend keeping your documents in an easily accessible location in case you are chosen.

Twenty per cent of reporting midwives will be selected for the audit each year so we recommend keeping your documents somewhere easy to access in case you are selected. The midwives participating in the audit are selected randomly, and it is not a punitive measure in any way.

If you are not selected for the audit, you do not need to submit your portfolio for this cycle. However, you are required to retain records of your Professional Development Portfolio for the previous two previous reporting cycles, should you be required to provide them at a later date.

If you are part of the 20% of midwives who will be audited this year, you will be notified by the College after October 1. You will have 30 days following the notification to submit your Learning Plan, Case Review Record (if applicable), and supporting documentation of completed learning activities to be compliant with the Quality Assurance Program. If you are selected for the audit, you will submit these documents via the Registrant Portal.

Under the Quality Assurance Regulation under the Midwifery Act, 1991 all registrants of the College regardless of their registration class are required to participate in the Quality Assurance Program.

The purpose of the QAP is to promote continuing competence and continuous quality improvement among the registrants. This applies to all registrants, including those in the inactive class, who are still expected to maintain professional knowledge, reflect on their practice, and engage in learning relevant to their role even if they are not currently providing clinical care.

There are different expectations for completing case reviews for midwives in the inactive class, depending on the total number of months in which they were registered in the general class over the three year reporting cycle. We’ve posted the table on our website here.

The College encourages midwives to engage in a wide range of learning activities as part of their PDP. These may include attending workshops, webinars, conferences, reading relevant articles, or listening to educational podcasts. However, not all activities qualify as learning for the purposes of the PDP. Activities such as going to the gym, engaging in therapeutic services for personal mental health support, or taking courses unrelated to midwifery do not meet the criteria for professional learning. Additionally, participating in an obstetrical emergency skills program, a neonatal resuscitation program, or a cardiopulmonary resuscitation program cannot be used to meet a learning goal, as these are continuing competencies required for registration.

Midwives are professionals; we expect that you will complete your activities and report them accurately. We trust that midwives who state they attended or completed a learning activity truly did so. For example, if you attend a webinar as a learning activity, a screenshot of your registration, information about the source of the webinar and the speakers, as well as date, length, and platform information are all reasonable ways to show you attended the learning activity. When you reflect on what you learned from the webinar as part of your documentation of completion of your learning goal, you can also provide details to show that you were in attendance, by referencing the material or information shared.

Definitely! Learning goals related to clinic administration, team building, communication, conflict resolution, and change management are all in line with appropriate learning goals. As long as they are relevant to midwifery, and you complete related learning activities, this is a great option.

No, you do not need to present a case review for it to count. The expectation is that a midwife attends a specific number of case reviews over the three-year reporting cycle. You do not need to present case reviews. Case reviews are counted by the number of cases themselves; if you attend a session with three midwifery practices, and each practice presents two cases, that would count as six complete case reviews.

You are correct. The requirement for practices to collect peer and client feedback now lies under the Professional Standards for Midwives, and not the QAP. Midwifery practice groups and EMCMs can develop their own method of obtaining client feedback to inform and drive quality improvement at the practice level.

Midwives who submit their declaration of completion and are not randomly selected for review are deemed compliant with the Professional Development Portfolio requirements. We will send a notice to confirm compliance with the Quality Assurance Program via email within five business days. Midwives who submit their declaration of completion and are randomly selected for review must submit complete records by the deadline to be compliant with the Professional Development Portfolio. Once we have reviewed your submission, and it is determined to be complete, we will send a notice to confirm compliance with the Quality Assurance Program via email within five business days.

If you have not submitted a declaration of completion by October 1, you will receive a written non-compliance notice from the Registrar of the College. Notice will be given in accordance with the Health Professions Procedural Code, Schedule 2 of the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991 (RHPA), the Quality Assurance Regulation under the Midwifery Act, 1991, and the College’s By-laws. The notice will specify the reason for the non-compliance notice and the requirements to rectify this situation. The notice provides 30 days for midwives to submit their completed Portfolio which may include the Learning Plan, the Case Review Record (if applicable), and supporting documentation of completed learning activities and pay an administrative late fee.

If you encounter exceptional circumstances that prevent you from meeting the Portfolio requirements, you can apply for an exemption. While applications must be submitted at least 15 business days prior to the reporting deadline which is September 11, 2025, we strongly recommend that midwives submit their request for exemption as soon as possible, as exemptions are not guaranteed. The exemption form can be accessed here.