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Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Health (BEAM)

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Key Details

Organisation Name

University of Manitoba

Location

Duff Roblin Building 190 Dysart Road University of Manitoba (Fort Garry campus) Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2
Canada

Website

Social

eMHIC Member Status

Research Collaborator

At a Glance

Description

BEAM is an app-based program to promote family mental health and reduce parenting stress. Co-designed by Drs. Leslie Roos and Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen, parents and clinicians, BEAM connects members to an online forum, peer coaches, and expert-led videos.

Implementation Status

Scaling implementation

Research with more than 1,000 Canadian participants indicated improvements in parent mental health and wellbeing. Next steps include expanding implementation and testing with Indigenous families, parents of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, and other diverse populations.

Target Population

Parents of young children

Parents of young children experiencing mental health and parenting challenges.

Impact & Outcomes

TBD
Reduction in anxiety
TBD
Reduction in anger
TBD
Reduction in parenting stress
TBD
Reduction in sleep difficulties
TBD
Reduction in anxiety
TBD
Reduction in anger
TBD
Reduction in parenting stress
TBD
Reduction in sleep difficulties

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Initiative Overview

The Current Gap

Early maternal mental health shapes lifelong child outcomes, yet many mothers face barriers accessing timely and effective support, including long wait times and gaps in available services. BEAM helps address these gaps by combining accessible mental health support with parenting strategies.

A scalable, community informed digital mental health program that combines parent mental health support, parenting strategies, and human connection to reduce barriers to care and strengthen family wellbeing.

Our Solution

BEAM addresses these gaps by providing accessible, online mental health and parenting support that families can access from home. The program combines psychoeducation, peer support, clinician guided discussions, and practical parenting strategies to reduce barriers related to cost, stigma, geography, and long wait times.

Key Features

1

Weekly Videos on Parenting & Mental Health

Weekly modules offer practical advice on parenting and mental health. Parents will learn how to navigate emotions, effective communication skills, and supportive parenting techniques.

2

Parent forum

A parent forum and drop-in zoom sessions where parents create positive connections with other families.

3

Peer coaching

Parents will connect one-on-one with a Peer Parent Coach for weekly check-ins to discuss their progress in the program and how to incorporate new skills learned through the BEAM.

4

Symptom & Parenting Monitoring

Parents can evaluate their well-being and overall parenting weekly to keep track of their progress through the BEAM program.

5

Systems navigation

The BEAM program has a Systems Navigator whose role is to connect parents with additional social services that can support their family’s well-being.

Collaboration in Action

Main Collaborators

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  • FHL_logo_Staked_heart.webp

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Key Learnings

Recruitment was one of the main challenges at the beginning of the initiative. Because digital mental health supports are still new to many people, some participants needed time to feel comfortable with the process and confident that BEAM was a legitimate and trustworthy program. We learned that trust-building was an important part of recruitment and onboarding. Some participants were initially hesitant about the ID check, so we adapted the process by offering Zoom calls where participants could show their ID instead of uploading it.

Community connection also made a meaningful difference, highlighting the importance of trusted community networks in engagement.
One important lesson was that trust-building needs to be built into the process from the beginning. For many participants, digital mental health supports may be new or unfamiliar, so clear communication, a warm onboarding process, and consistent follow-up are essential. Small changes, such as offering a Zoom option for ID verification, helped participants feel more comfortable and supported.

Another key lesson was the importance of being able to connect participants with additional supports when needed. While BEAM could address many needs, some participants required resources or referrals beyond the scope of the initiative. Having a clear process for identifying those needs and connecting participants to appropriate services helped ensure they felt supported and did not fall through the cracks.
This question is not applicable, as BEAM was a provincial project and LightBEAM was a national project.

Looking Ahead

BEAM has shown promising benefits for supporting parent mental health and parenting confidence. Future plans will focus on building on these outcomes and exploring how BEAM can be adapted to better support the needs of specific populations.
This may include adaptations for perinatal populations, French-speaking families, Indigenous communities, families of children with neurodevelopmental differences, immigrant families, and Chinese communities.

The goal is to better understand how different groups can benefit from BEAM and how the initiative can continue to become more accessible, relevant, and responsive to the families it serves.
There may be opportunities for collaboration related to future adaptations of BEAM for different populations and communities.

For more information, please contact: [email protected]
The future vision is for BEAM to become more widely accessible to the public and for more people to become familiar with it as a trusted support for families. Ideally, BEAM would continue to grow through community partnerships, adaptations for different populations, and increased awareness among families, service providers, and health systems.
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Key Contact

Dr. Leslie Roos
Primary Investigator
University of Manitoba

Email

[email protected]

Website

Media

BEAM: Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Health (Mental Health in the Early Years Initiative)

PROMOTION

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