Family Resource Centre and Library

Welcome!

The National Bank Family Resource Centre and Library and website offer up-to-date books, online resources, and a digital book collection encompassing all areas of child health and wellness. Our resources aim to empower families to make informed medical choices for their child’s health and well-being and promote healthy lifestyles. These include a variety of easy-to-understand educational materials on medical conditions, psychosocial health, parenting, and wellness alongside many services and programs.

Ask the librarian

Our patient education and health information research services are available to families and staff to empower parents, caregivers, families, and the MCH community with reliable up-to-date health education and information resources.  

Parents and families are welcome to email [email protected] or call us at 514.412.4400 ext. 22383

Our library’s resource catalogue

Explore our collection of more than 2,000 on-site books, carefully selected for parents, children and staff to help you better understand important health and parenting topics.

We offer:

• A wide range of physical books available for borrowing
• Curated access to hundreds of trusted websites, support groups and apps
• Easy-to-use search tools to help you find what you need quickly
• A Quick Search feature to look up any topic, or browse by category using the Medical Conditions or Parenting tabs
• Advanced filters to refine your search by language, type of resource, and more
• Assistance from professional librarians as needed at every step of the way

Click here to search for resources in our catalogue.

Meet the Libby app

Libby is a free app for parents, caregivers and staff where you can consult eBooks from our easy-access library.

Topics range from health and wellness topics, to parenting, and psychosocial and educational issue

Send an e-mail directly to [email protected] to sign up and subscribe.

Podcasts for children and parents

For children

• Best Mental Health and Wellness Podcasts for Kids, Tweens, and Teens
  • These shows aim to help kids and families build positive habits for physical and emotional health, and they offer accessible tools to use in challenging moments.
• Chompers
  • Chompers is a podcast meant to encourage kids to brush their teeth. Each morning and night, kids can enjoy short quizzes, fun facts, stories, riddles, and jokes, all with gentle reminders keep on brushing.
• But Why: A Podcast For Curious Kids ~ NPR
  • But Why is a show led by you, kids! You ask the questions, and we find the answers. We tackle topics large and small, about nature, words such as who invented the English language!
• Naitre et Grandir ~ Kittycat Sings About Emotions
  • Nine fun songs sung by Kittycat! These songs are fun to sing together as a family, and they will help your little one learn about their emotions.
• Naitre et Grandir ~ Story Time
  • Chaminou and his friends have great adventures! Listen to these fun tales along with your child.
• Podcasts Inspired by (and That Inspired) Books
  • This list of book-inspired podcasts is fun list of podcasts features some of kids’ favorite characters, authors, and stories they know and love.
• Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories
  • It is important for kids to have role models and representations of people who look, act, and think like them. This list offers a wide range of podcasts that reflect the experiences, perspectives, and stories that make our world so diverse.

Podcasts for parents

• Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH)
  • These podcasts are an invaluable resource for anyone interested in child and adolescent mental health.
• First Time Dads
  • Two first-time dads discuss the joys, challenges, and general lunacy of raising your first child and supporting a first-time mum.
• HealthTalks – Stanford Medicine Children’s Health
  • HealthTalks by Stanford Medicine Children’s Health is a podcast series that answers parents’ most common questions about raising healthy and happy kids.
• Healthy Children ~ American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
  • This podcast is hosted by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and their partnered consumer site, HealthyChildren.org. Expert pediatricians who discuss all aspects of children’s health and well-being.
• Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre ~ BC Children’s Hospital
  • Family mental health and wellness are explored through real stories, expertise, and practical tips. Listeners will walk away from episodes with practical tips and strategies that they can use to promote mental health and wellness.
• Kids Health Cast – Weill Cornell Medicine
  • In the age of the internet, it can be difficult to navigate what is fact-based or pure speculation. Cut through the noise with Kids Health Cast, featuring Weill Cornell Medicine’s expert physicians and researchers discussing a wide range of health topics.
• Motherhood Sessions
  • A renowned reproductive psychiatrist, sits down with mothers and lets us listen to conversations that are hard to have outside of a therapist’s office. Each episode features a mother struggling with some problem or question—from career uncertainty to sex to ambivalence about even being a mother.
• Starting Kindergarten ~ Everything you need to know ~ Naitre et Grandir 
  • As your child starts kindergarten, you and they will experience a brand new world as they start school. In this podcast, parents will find everything you need to tackle this important new chapter with confidence.
• The Boob Group
  • Support for parents who are passionate about providing breast milk to their babies. Each week, groups of experienced moms openly discuss their success, their struggles, and society’s impact on how they feed their babies.
• Young & Healthy ~ Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
  • Cincinnati Children’s Young & Healthy features thoughts and perspectives from kid’s health experts, patients, families and kids on all things pediatric health. The conversations touch on current health topics and issues that affect children today.
• What to Expect Podcast
  • The What to Expect podcast to helps mothers navigate their entire journey, from conception to pregnancy, to the first years of parenting.

Lire/Imagine/Read

Lire/Imagine/Read is a hospital-based early literacy project linking health and reading. Our LIR program works with healthcare providers and a volunteer team to promote literacy and engage families in reading together. LIR is active in six outpatient pediatric clinics.

TumbleBooks digital library for kids

Tumble Books Library is a free App where children and teens can access a curated database of both fiction and non-fiction eBooks. We invite you to check out the collection with your child. Go to www.TumbleBookLibrary.com or download the App on the Apple or Google stores (click on School). Here is the information you will need to log in:

• Username: muhc
• Password: reads

Evaluating health information

• An Introduction to Health Literacy – The National Network of Libraries of Medicine
• Evaluating the Credibility of Health Websites: Can You Trust Dr. Google? – CADTH
  • A guide to help decision-makers and healthcare professionals and patients make well-informed decisions to improve the quality of health care services.
• How do I decide if I can trust the health information I’m seeing? – Canadian Medical Association
  • Sometimes when we see health information online, it can be hard to tell if it is coming from a reliable source. Canadians say they frequently see false health info online. Whether you are looking at a website, photo, video or news story, what matters is whether the people who originally created it are trustworthy.
• How to recognize a reliable source of information on health
  • Questions to ask yourself to determine whether a source of information is reliable
• Medical Library Association – MLA
  • This page will direct you in ways to find good health information. The Medical Library Association also has book recommendations for books to help you understand how to find the best information on your health.
• Online Health Information Aid – OHIA
  • A group of graduate students, librarians and researchers helping you participate in your own health care by improve skills and confidence for finding trustworthy health information online.

Online health resources for children and teens

• Appetite to Play
  • Games and activities geared towards teaching kids about healthy meals and eating as well as the importance of physical activities.
• Free Printable Activities for Kids – SuperKids Nutrition
  • Health information for parents, kids and health educators. An animated SuperKids Crew teaches about nutrition, and there are fun activities to print and complete.
• Health Canada Experiences
  • Online games to better understand the health risks of alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, and vaping products.
• Kids Help Phone
  • A mental health website with over 400 resources including videos, games and tools to help young people learn more about their well-being and Feel Out Loud.
• Mindfulness Resources – Kids Heart Challenge – American Heart Association
  • Health tips and fun activities, such as the Healthy Challenge Scavenger Hunt and several mindfulness videos.
• TeensHealth
  • A safe, private space for teens who need honest, reliable information and advice about health, emotions and life.

Health search engines

• AboutKidsHealth – SickKids
  • Comprehensive information about kids’ health and wellness with sections for kids and teens as well as an index of medications and drugs for children.
• FDA Index to Drug-Specific Information – Federal Drug Administration
  • Information on medication, information usage, adverse effects as well as a description medications in plain language. 
• Kiddle – visual search engine for kids – Kiddle
  • A popular search engine tailored for kids, featuring bright colours, space themes and larger-than-life pictures. Kiddle uses Google’s Safe Search and adds more filters to block more content that is inappropriate.
• KidsHealth – Nemours
  • Advice on children’s health, behavior and growth,  from before birth through the teen years.
• The Mayo Clinic Health Library
  • Health information, tools for managing health and support on many healthcare topics.
• Useful websites – Online Health Information Aid (OHIA)
  • Tips and resources on searching, evaluating, and using online health information to improve skills and confidence for finding trustworthy health information online and help users participate in their own health care.
• WebMD
  • Comprehensive and reliable source of health and medical information on the internet.

Learn about tests and procedures

Information in other languages

• AboutKidsHealth
  • Health education for children, youth and their caregivers in English, French, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Urdu, Tamil, Arabic and Punjabi.
• Caring for Kids New to Canada – Canadian Pediatric Society
  • Online health information about children’s health and development as well as specifics about the health care system in Canada for those who are new to the country.
• Indigenous Health: Health Information in Inuktitut – University of Manitoba
  • Links for diverse First Nations and Inuit health and social organizations as well as information on health topics, such as diabetes, mental health, nutrition, and emotional health.
• Our Kids Health – Kids Health Network
  • Evidence-based health information translated and adapted to help make the right decisions for the health of your family.
• Medline Plus
  • Health information in multiple languages, arranged by language or by health topic.

Disclaimer

The information provided by the library is for educational purposes only. Library staff are not medical professionals and therefore cannot diagnose illnesses or recommend medical treatments. We encourage you to discuss the information we provide with your doctor or another healthcare professional.