Healthy Child Programme - online learning

This essential, award-winning eLearning resource covers health promotion and common child health issues from infancy to adulthood.

Note Some eLearning listed below is hosted on eLearning for Healthcare (e-LfH). If you are not eligible for an e-LfH account or if you live outside the UK, you can purchase individual or bulk licenses to use all eLearning for Healthcare products.

Core programmes

There are three distinct programmes for different ages, all focusing on crucial areas for the health professional team caring for children and young people. A team of multidisciplinary experts developed and quality assured the programmes.

1. Healthy child programme - 0 to 5 years

The Healthy Child Programme (HCP) is an e-learning programme for all healthcare professionals working with pregnancy and the first five years of life. It is the first programme in the Healthy Child Programme 0-18 series of e-learning resources, including the Healthy School Child Programme and Adolescent Health Programme.

The HCP e-learning programme supports the implementation of the Healthy Child Programme – Pregnancy and the first five years of life framework and covers a range of topics related to child health and health promotion. It is suitable for health visitors, nurses, trainee paediatricians and the child health team as part of blended learning for those in training, or wishing to update.

2. Healthy school child programme - 5 to 12 years

The Healthy School Child Programme (HSC) is an e-learning programme for all healthcare professionals working with children aged 5-12 years.

HSC focuses on the school-based team, the awareness, assessment and support of the mental and other health needs of primary school-age children, and the key issues around the identification and support of children with extra needs: social, physical or environmental.

3. Adolescent health programme - 12 to 18 years

The Adolescent Health Programme (AHP) is an e-learning programme for all healthcare professionals working with young people.

Suitable for GPs, school nurses, community paediatricians and the child health team, AHP aims to ensure that all health professionals have essential youth communication skills and understand young people’s rights to consent and confidentiality.

You can download the full curriculum for the adolescent health programme below.

Early developmental support - special educational needs and disabilities

We developed this course with Health Education England eLearning for Healthcare (e-LfH) in association with The Open University, Great Ormond Street Hospital and the University of Hertfordshire.

The course enables skills development for professionals from health, education and social care who are involved in the care of children with special educational needs and disabilities.

The six eLearning sessions that make up the course build on scientific evidence, as well as practitioner and family experiences. These sessions cover:

  • Supporting children and young people’s development
  • An introduction to using early support materials in context
  • Introducing and using a developmental journal
  • Developmental journal visual impairment: developmental principles (two sessions)
  • General developmental principles (for use with all developmental journals)

The sessions are designed to be accessed at three levels:

  1. Broad audience, including parents and generic practitioners
  2. Health professionals, allied health professionals and practitioners
  3. Specialist health and educational professionals

The course incorporates a wide range of materials from the Early Support Programme, which created specialist developmental journals related to specific conditions and more general developmental journals for preschool and school age children and young people.

The course also provides a portal to the journals themselves and the full range of other Early Support materials. The Developmental Journal for Babies and Young Children with Visual Impairment (DJVI), for example, provides structured early childhood intervention and guidance for young children with visual impairment. However, training is essential for its effective and safe use.