NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has launched a new app for parents of young children to bring together a host of health and wellbeing advice.
Happy Healthy Tots, which is available through the Right Decisions app and online, gives information on a range of subjects to support new parents.
It includes information on the Health Visiting Service, feeding your child, parental health and wellbeing, your child’s health and emotional wellbeing, Family Nurse Partnership and local information.
The app is written so that the information is easy to understand and includes videos.
Parents, families and carers can download it for free via a link or a QR code and then once downloaded they can access it anywhere without needing WiFi access.
Happy Healthy Tots was the idea of Health Visiting Team Leader Laura Gordon and has been designed to collate all information traditionally given to parents through multiple leaflets, bringing it into one user-friendly place.
Like the health visiting team, Happy Healthy Tots can support parents from pregnancy until their child goes to school.
The app, which is free to download, has many benefits and can be changed into different languages and has partially sighted adjustments making it more user-friendly, with the ability to enlarge text.
Laura and her health visiting team in Inverclyde pursued and developed the idea for the app which has now been launched by NHSGGC with input from all six Health and Social Care Partnerships covered by the health board.
Laura said: “We are delighted to launch our Happy Healthy Tots app and website which has been designed with the needs of parents and families in mind.
“It brings together all the information traditionally given to families in leaflets and so much more by using videos and a greater content of resources.
“We’d encourage all parents, grandparents or expectant parents to download and benefit from this helpful resource.
“The app means they will always be able to access the advice at a touch of a button, which will include local resources.
“Having this information housed within the app also means we are able to keep it fully up to date, easily accessible and user-friendly to all.”
Inverclyde health visiting team has pioneered sharing information over its Facebook, X and Instagram accounts for the last four years and they now have more than 5,000 followers.
Initially developed as a priority during the pandemic to support parents and carers with reliable and safe information, their social media feeds have posts to support mental health, the health and development of children, community information and groups, safety of children and support engagement and involvement.
