MERTIL for Parents – Practitioner Version
MERTIL for Parents is a course for parents about TRUST, not trauma.It is a 35-min online program that helps parents of 0-5 yr olds build trust with their young child through safety, security, repair and joy.
MERTIL for Parents – Practitioner Version is the same course, but for health care practitioners who work with caregivers of 0-5 yr olds. It includes a comprehensive handbook on how to use the MERTIL for Parents program with parent clients in 1:1 sessions or in groups.
What’s MERTIL for Parents?
- A course for parents to do on their own or with the help of their early childhood practitioner
- A short 35-min animated online program that supports parents with young children (0-5 years) to build trust with their child throigh safety, security, repair and joy.
- Helps parents see their child’s behaviour differently to enhance their parent-child relationship
- Can be completed on their own, anywhere, anytime.
- Explains the special importance of trust for positive early childhood development
- Gives ideas about strengthening trust, especially during times when life is challenging
- Was co-created by nurses, parents of young children, clinicians, and researchers
- Is evidence-based, with all content grounded in current research in attachment theory, developmental neuroscience, and psychoanalysis
- Is presented by Prof. Jennifer McIntosh, a leading Australian child development researcher and therapist.
MERTIL for Parents program structure
- A 35-min video split into 4 chapters, approx 10 min each
- Includes a 6-min animated video message from a child to their parent about building trust. Narrated by a young child
- Online and self-paced; parents complete at their own pace and in their own time or with their early childhood health care practititoner
- Audio-only option
- 5 REAL-LIFE video examples of trust in action, with real parents and children
- Activities to help you think about what you have learnt
- Tip sheets and posters for downloading – print and stick up on the walls
Additional content for Practitioners:
The MERTIL for Parents Handbook for Practitioners
A downloadable PDF handbook is included to support healthcare practitioners to use MERTIL for Parents with families with young children aged 0-5 yrs
Outlines how to use MERTIL for Parents with individual parents or parent groups and provides:
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- A structure for short or multiple or extended MERTIL for Parents sessions
- How to run Group sessions
- A reflective conversations guide
- A summary of the Trust in Action real life dyad videos with reflective prompts.
Program outline
The course is made up of 4 chapters, presented in themes as outlined below:
Chapter 1: Introduction and why trust is important – 7 min
- Welcome and background
- A 6-min animated message from a child to their parent, about trust
- Is MERTIL for Parents the right program for me?
- Looking after yourself while you listen
Chapter 2: Why trust matters – 12 min
- What does trust mean for a baby?
- Let’s get rid of some unhelpful myths about babies and parenting ideas
- Parental trust when the parent has had painful relational experiences
- Practical suggestions to build trust and shared delight
- The “good enough” parent..
- Attachment relationships: That special connection between baby and parent
- Trust equipment: Built-in from birth, to communicate, connect, & trust
- Parenting capacities change with stress
- How children tolerate and manage stress
Chapter 3: Trust & trauma, rupture & repair – 11 min
- Being a predictable parent and how this is helpful to a baby
- Rupture and repair
- Good stress, bad stress, and knowing the difference
- What about big rupture?
- When trust has been tricky
- When trauma is part of your parenting picture
Chapter 4: Being your best parent, with support – 10 min
- How do I know if I need professional support with my parenting?
- Signs from your baby
- The trust dance
- Asking for help
Resources: Activities, Tip Sheets & Posters, REAL-LIFE Video examples of trust, Where to get support
Learning time: 35 mins
Resources: 1 hour
Language: English
Suitable for:
Parents of 0-5 yr old children
Nurses
Midwives
Psychologists/Psychiatrists
Social Workers
Family Support Workers
Child Protection Workers
Infant Mental Health Workers
General Practitioners
MERTIL for Parents: for Practitioners
Payment Information
Once you complete your billing details, you will be redirected to the LaTrobe payment gateway One Stop Secure. This process may take a few minutes, so please be patient.
The LaTrobe payment gateway accepts:
- Credit card (VISA or Mastercard)
- China UnionPay
- PayPal
Purchase options and suggested use for practitioners and organisations
Individual practitioner use:
- Purchase 1 MERTIL for Parents licence and use it to enhance your work with families.
- If you’d like your parent-clients to access and use the course themselves, they can purchase a copy here at a disocunted rate: https://www.mertil.com.au/parents-process/
- Or you may purchase multiple licences (using the form below) and distribute them to your parent-clients so they can access the course for free.
- Each licence is linked to one account.
Organisation use:
- Purchase multiple MERTIL for Parents licences for your practitioners to use in their work.
- For group work we suggest each family has thier own course to access at home and that the practitoner uses their copy to run 1:1 or group sessions.
- Purchase multiple licences and distribute them to your parent-clients so they can access the course for free.
- Each licence is linked to one account.
To purchase multiple licences please contact our team using the form below
Practitioner Licensing Pricing
Request Practitioner Licences
Complete the form below and we'll contact you to arrange payment and provide your access codes.
To get a quick idea of price, add the number of licences required into the form below.
How health care professionals can use MERTIL for Parents and the underlying research
How to use MERTIL for Parents with your clients…
- In a facilitated parent/carer group setting, where you go through the program with them
- In the same setting but you ask them to watch the program at home before coming in to discuss the ideas
- With individual families or parents/carers, either together with them or after they have watched it at home
The research…
MERTIL for Parents grew out of MERTIL. The original MERTIL training is an online and in-person program to assist health care professionals to identify and prevent relational trauma. While MERTIL evaluations in 2020 found that practitioners felt confident to identify and respond to relational trauma after doing the program (Clancy et al., 2020), they did not feel they had appropriate resource options to give to at-risk families, particularly for those in rural and remote settings.
In response to this feedback, the MERTIL team (Professor Jenn McIntosh, Dr Shikkiah De Quadros-Wander, Dr Jessica Opie and Tanudja Gibson) along with input from nurses and parents, developed MERTIL for Parents (My Early Relational Trust-Informed Learning). So, in MERTIL for Parents, we swapped out trauma for trust. The program is designed to be used by parents/caeres on thier own or with their health care practitioner.
MERTIL for Parents is all about promoting a parent or carer’s understanding of their role in building the foundations of relational trust. Specifically, MERTIL for Parents focuses on building parental knowledge of relational trust and its importance for positive early childhood development. MERTIL for Parents was designed to provide an evidence-based, timely, and accessible prevention resource, to promote equitable healthcare access. The overarching aim of MERTIL for Parents is to reduce the need for later service system engagement by targeting families with emerging social and emotional concerns before these reach clinical levels.
Further Information
For further information on the course and group discounts, get in touch with the MERTIL team via our online contact form.