Australian College of Nursing
Graduate Certificate in Neonatal Care
- Delivery: Face to Face
- Study Level: Postgraduate
- Duration: 12 months
Enhancing the professional and ethical understanding, knowledge, and skills of neonatal nurses and midwives will enable them to provide evidence-based care, optimizing the health, growth, and developmental outcomes of neonates and their families.

Course overview
The course is founded on the principles of cultural safety and developmentally supportive, family-centred care. It responds to industry requirements for highly skilled neonatal clinicians capable of providing best practices in collaboration with other members of interprofessional teams and incorporates the Australian Standards for Neonatal Nurses, 4th Ed. (ACNN, 2019).
Graduates may use their advanced knowledge in advanced practice roles or to pursue further tertiary education.
Key facts
What you will study
To complete the Graduate Certificate in Neonatal Care, students will need to choose one stream comprising of four units.
Neonatal Intensive Care aims to develop the student’s ability to evaluate and manage the wide array of conditions presenting in the neonatal intensive care environment.
Core units
- Applied Neonatal Physiology
- Assessment of Growth and Development
- Advancing Professional Practice
Specialty elective
- Neonatal Intensive Care
Entry requirements
Admission to a graduate certificate course is based on academic merit and selection. In addition, applicants must satisfy any prerequisites or additional requirements specified for particular courses, including ACN’s general eligibility criteria.
All applicants seeking admission are required to:
- Hold a Bachelor of Nursing or registered nurse equivalent qualification.
- Hold current registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) or the equivalent registering authority in your country of origin.
- Meet the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia English language skills registration standard (nursing and midwifery) - please refer to the AHPRA website to download the standard.
- Have a minimum of one year of postgraduate experience.
- Currently employed in the clinical area of specialisation.
For some GC units of study, individual consideration may be given to applicants who are not registered nurses.
Recognition of Prior Learning
ACN offers RPL for the core unit of study, Assessment of Growth and Development, to enrolling students who have successfully completed the 12-month Queensland Health Neonatal Transition Program for Registered Nurses and Midwives. Consideration of RPL for similar programs will be undertaken on a case by case basis. Please contact the course coordinator Trish Lowe MACN for more detail.
Outcomes
Learning outcomes
On the completion of the Graduate Certificate in Neonatal Care, students will be better able to:
- Demonstrate the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to provide family-centred, developmentally supportive care in the neonatal specialty context and benchmark against appropriate professional standards.
- Discuss the legal, ethical, social and cultural issues affecting neonates and their families.
- Evaluate neonatal practice against research and current literature to identify potential areas of practice development and support the provision of contemporary evidence-based neonatal care.
- Develop clinical decision-making and leadership skills through research, inquiry and interprofessional collaboration to enhance practice.
- Reflect on the advanced knowledge and skills required to maintain therapeutic relationships with neonates, their families and the interprofessional healthcare team.
Fees and FEE-HELP
Estimated total 2025 member price (10% discount): $9,949.5 (domestic full-fee paying place)
Estimated total 2025 non-member price: $11,055 (domestic full-fee paying place)
Being a part of the ACN community allows nurses to be the best they can be and strengthens the voice of nursing through various invaluable benefits, including 10% off graduate certificates.
Estimated fees are based on four units of study.
A student’s annual fee may vary per:
- The number of units studied.
- Choice of courses.
- Credit from previous study or work experience.
- Eligibility for government-funded loans.
Student fees shown are subject to change. Contact the university directly to confirm.
FEE-HELP loans are available to assist eligible full-fee-paying domestic students with the cost of a university course.