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Social networks as the basis for better support
The MLM-Tool helps practitioners in Family Hubs, Early Help, and social care make the social world of children, young people, and families visible from their own perspective.
When you can actually see who is around someone, it becomes much easier to offer support that is relational, personalised, and sustainable.
Curious what this could mean for your organisation or service?
Schedule a conversation
You know relationships matter.
But they are hard to see.
Everyone knows that relationships and informal support matter. Friends, relatives, neighbors, and key adults can make the difference between coping and crisis. Yet this wider network is still not a natural part of everyday practice. Important people stay off the radar, and their roles are not fully considered when decisions about support are made.
Without a clear picture of who is around a child, young person, or family, support can feel heavier than needed, arrive too late, or put extra pressure on practitioners and professionals. With a simple way to explore the social world together, it becomes easier to see who is already there, where the gaps are, and what small steps could strengthen connection and resilience.
A practical way to see and work with relationships
The MLM-Tool is a visual method that helps you and the people you support map the network around them. You discover who is already there, where they are, and how the relationship in the network are. The map is created by the individual themselves, with zero to little support where needed. This gives them time to discover their relationships and social network without pressure.
For organisations, MLM offers a concrete way to bring prevention and relational working into daily practice. Delivered through your existing teams, it can also support wider Public Health goals around connection, resilience and earlier help.
Easy to start!
Many organisations choose to start small with the MLM-Tool: in one team, on one site, with a clear group of children, young people and families, supported by a few trained MLM‑Coaches. That makes the first step manageable, well supported, and immediately relevant to everyday work, while leaving plenty of room to scale up later.
MLM is designed to fit into the work you already do. Your practitioners already work with the social worlds of children, young people, and families every day. The MLM-Tool offers a clear, careful way to make those worlds visible and to use them as a basis for better-matched, preventative support.
Over time, this way of working strengthens sustainable use of the social network and reduces unnecessary pressure on services. Step by step, you build towards more future-proof support for children, young people, parents, carers, and professionals.
One-day training
Time is tight in every service. That is why MLM training is short, focused, and based on your own cases and context. In one compact day, practitioners get to know the method and practise with real situations. It gives professionals a natural way to ask about relationships and support, without adding pressure or complexity. The aim is simple: they feel ready to use the MLM-Tool the next day.
Light follow‑up sessions can help teams share experiences, fine‑tune how MLM fits local pathways, and connect it to your wider prevention and public health ambitions. If you wish, we can also help you develop internal champions so the method does not depend on external trainers.
Discover the possibilities
Proven in Kent & Medway
Over the past four years, the Family Hubs in Kent and Medway have invited us back each year to train new groups of practitioners. In that time, around 500 practitioners have been trained as MLM‑Coaches, using the tool in Family Hubs, 0–25 / Early Help, and related community settings.
This long‑term relationship is important: it shows that MLM is not just a one‑off training but a way of working that local teams recognise as useful and keep choosing to invest in. For new areas, Kent and Medway offer a living example of how you can start in one part of the system and gradually build a sustainable, network‑focused practice.
Curious what this could mean for your organisation?
Would you like to explore how to start with the MLM-Tool in your Family Hubs, 0–25 / Early Help or social care services?
We are happy to think with you about a start-up approach that fits your local context, ambitions, and capacity.
Schedule a meeting