Investing in Child Nutrition is a free, publicly available online course designed to provide guidance, skills, and practical information to health workers to promote, protect, and support breastfeeding and complementary feeding. The course is available in French and English.

Working with UNICEF and a global network of experts in IYCF, Alive & Thrive developed the course based on the World Health Organization (WHO) Combined Course on Growth Assessment and IYCF counselling (2012) and supplemental content from WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Global Health Media Project, and the Raising Children Network (Australia).

Each of the nine modules starts with an introductory video featuring insights from experts and highlighting learning goals. The interactive content includes photos, graphics, videos, and animations, as well as audio clips to engage the user. Activities and knowledge checks aid learning and promote user interactivity with the course content, while links to additional resources and references promote further learning.

For women to be successful in adapting and sustaining breastfeeding and other recommended infant and young child feeding practices, and for countries to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, support for IYCF is needed in homes, workplaces, health care settings, and communities. The new e-learning course brings access to training in IYCF counseling to more health workers.

Acknowledgement and special thanks are given to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, WHO, Global Health Media Project, Raising Children Network (Australia), and other global IYCF experts for their support in providing content, multimedia, and expert input to this course. Usability testing was conducted with the support of the Department of Health and Kalusugan ng Mag-Ina, Inc. (KMI) in the Philippines, and the National Institute of Nutrition, Viet Nam.