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Stronger services through stronger social networks
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 see who is around someone, the support becomes relational, personalised, and sustainable.
Curious what this could mean for your organisation or service?
Schedule a conversation
High responsibility,
limited room to move.
Running social and care services today means working in a constant squeeze. Budgets are tight, staffing is fragile, and demand keeps rising. At the same time, policy and inspection frameworks expect stronger prevention, better use of community assets, and sustainable outcomes for the people supported.
In daily practice, this often leads to long trajectories, repeated help for the same clients and families, and pressure on teams. Professionals do their best, but it is not always clear who else is around, how strong that social network is, and where it can be used more effectively.
In that reality, every new intervention has to earn its place. It must be practical, affordable, easy to explain internally, and clearly linked to better results for families and teams. If it doesn’t meet those conditions, it simply won’t be realistic to implement.
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. In a system that increasingly works towards social prescribing and community assets, practitioners still lack a simple, shared way to see and discover those networks in real time.
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. This does not replace professional help, but it helps to focus it where it is really needed and move towards more sustainable support and care.
A ready-made method for network‑focused work
The MLM-My Life With... is a practice‑based method that makes the social network around a client or family visible in a structured way. With a simple visual tool, your clients and families can independently discover who is involved, who gives which support, where there are gaps or risks, and where the community can be brought in.
It helps professionals see more quickly where informal networks can be strengthened and where professional help or services are really needed, so trajectories become more focused and effective. Bringing social prescribing principles into everyday practice.
We offer a complete package: a clear tool your professionals can use directly with families, a compact training that equips internal coaches in the MLM‑Method, and light follow‑up so the method stays alive in daily practice.
For more about the MLM-Tool
Kate Munday-Hoctor
We will be able to incorporate it within a range of our wellbeing programmes and coaching initiatives, supporting under-represented individuals in overcoming barriers to their health and wellbeing.
Caroline Fiddyment
The training will allow me to connect with families and allowing the families to understand how important their support network is to them. I like the practical side of completing the tool for myself. I wasn't expecting to do this.
Rose Sparrowhawk
The MLM-Tool will help me in enabling people to identify support when perhaps they don't feel they have any. It allows for space to have conversations and share about the relationships that they have.
One-day training
Time and attention are scarce in every organisation. That is why our training is compact, focused, and closely linked to real cases your teams work with.
In one day, your professionals learn the core principles of the MLM‑Method, how to use the MLM-Tool in real conversations with the clients and families, and how to integrate it into their existing way of working. The goal? Your professionals feel ready to use the MLM-Tool the very next day.
They get all materials needed, access to our MLM-Coach community, and codes for the premium MLM-Tool. We remain available for check-ins, questions, and reflection, so MLM does not fade into the background but becomes part of normal practice. For you, this means a clear, contained investment and process rather than an open‑ended training.
Discover the possibilitiesStart small, learn fast,
grow when it works!
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.
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. Our contacts state that MLM supports policy goals around prevention, early help, and sustainable independence. 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 to see how the MLM-Tool fits into your organisation?
In a short online conversation, we look at your current work with families and networks and explore one or two realistic ways MLM could support it.
We are happy to think with you about a start-up approach that fits your local context, ambitions, and capacity.
Schedule a meeting