MULs

Public Health Multi-User Licences  
Solihull Approach online courses:  antenatal course, postnatal course and courses for parents of children up to 19 yrs
Our aim is to increase emotional health and well-being across the population. We want to reduce ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) and increase support to children and parents, reducing both mental and physical health across the lifespan. Our face to face and online courses are relationship based, supporting the relationship from conception onwards, whilst also integrating knowledge and key messages from research.
Since an initial pilot in the West Midlands in 2016/2017, we have worked in partnership with a number of Early Implementer sites across the UK to develop the system, and then with many more once everything was up and running fully. There are now over 35 boroughs with an MUL for their populations, including 3 out of 4 whole UK nations.

  • The online courses cover from conception up to 19 years: the antenatal course ‘Understanding pregnancy, labour, birth and your baby’; the postnatal course ‘Understanding your baby’, and courses for parents ‘Understanding your child’ (0-19 years, main course) and ‘Understanding your teenager’s brain’ (short course).
  • The content of the online courses is the same as the Solihull Approach face-to-face groups.
  • There were two research papers in 2018 on the online courses with more in the pipeline.
  • ‘Understanding your child’ is available in 7 languages: English, Welsh, Urdu, Modern Standard Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Bulgarian and Polish (high quality, professional translations).
  • The English and Urdu versions both have a voiceover, requiring less literacy and providing a choice of learning style.
  • ‘Understanding your pregnancy, labour, birth and your baby’ is available in English, Urdu and Welsh, with voiceovers.
  • A version of the online antenatal course for same sex women couples is available.
  • All courses can be translated into 108 languages via Google Translate (subject to the limitations of a web-based auto translation service!)
  • There is an automatic monthly uptake report by email.
  • There is a ‘live’ reporting system on uptake, demographics, geographical take-up and evaluation. Individual learners are not identifiable.
  • There is a detailed Implementation Kit to support roll-out.
  • We can customise a postcard template for you to distribute to your residents.
  • You will be invited to regular Sponsor Network Events to share learning and liaise with other sponsors.
  • The Solihull Approach Team support every area.
The advantages of access to the online courses are:
  • when a mother or father is attending a group but their partner is unable to attend, their partner can access the same material online
  • it increases accessibility for parents in remote areas
  • it increases accessibility for men, who traditionally tend not to attend groups
  • it provides an alternative for parents who do not want to attend a group
  • it increases accessibility for grandparents or other carers who may not get a place on a group
  • it can to be used to increase population access to evidence based material that has been shown to impact positively on the parent/child relationship with all the advantages that that will bring across the lifespan
  • it can be used as part of an early intervention or prevention strategy
A multi-user licence enables an area to:
  • ramp up the offer across the population, as it is for an unlimited number of users
  • cover seamlessly from antenatal up to 19 years
  • build it into systems (e.g. send out a postcard with the scan letter)
  • destigmatise support for parents
We liaise with you about the roll out; sharing learning.
Our experience is that it takes a few weeks or months to plan the roll out.  The 12 month licence begins when you are ready to start, so the whole phase can be between 13 to 16 months.
We think this is a very exciting development, destigmatising parenting courses as a universal offer and increasing emotional health and well-being and supporting child development across the population as part of a strategy including face to face groups.
We continue to develop the system, and continue to welcome collaboration with sponsors to improve the experience for both learners and sponsors.
We’d be delighted to talk to you about this initiative. For further information and/or a quote for your area please contact us on 0121 296 4448 or solihull.approach@heartofengland.nhs.uk