MERTIL for Parents is a 35-min online program that helps parents build trust with their young child through safety, security, repair and joy.
It will help parents understand why trust matters so much to their baby or young child’s development, plus how to grow it, repair it and keep it.
For parents of 0-5 yr olds and the health care professionals who look after them
What’s MERTIL for Parents?
- A short 35-min animated online program that supports parents with young children (0-5 years) to build trust with their child
- Supports parents, to see their child’s behaviour differently and to enhance their parent-child relationship
- The program can be completed on their own, anywhere, anytime.
- Tells the story of trust between parents and young children, and its special importance 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
- 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; complete at your own pace and in your own time
- Activities to help you think about what you have learnt
- Tip sheets and posters for downloading – print and stick up on the walls
- 5 extra REAL-LIFE video examples of trust in action, with real parents and children
Additional content for Practitioners: The MERTIL for Parents Handbook for Practitioners (PDF available in the course)
A downloadable PDF handbook available for free to any health practitioner who wants 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
To purchase multiple licences please contact our team using the form below
Practitioner Licensing Pricing
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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.