Researchers within the PRIME theme at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba have received $1.25 million over the next five years as part of the Mental Health in the Early Years (MHITEY) Implementation Science Initiative from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which aims to prioritize mental health in children.
The project will be led by CHRIM researcher, Dr. Leslie Roos, Assistant Professor at the University of Manitoba, and will promote dual-generation mental health through a hybrid eHealth and community-based intervention, using an app: BEAM (Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Well-Being). The app-based program was developed by Dr. Roos and her team to improve the well-being of a generation of children born during a global pandemic to highly stressed parents. So far, the research shows that BEAM has great promise in helping parents overcome challenges and improve parent-child relationships.
Within the app, parents can access educational videos, group check-ins, support forums, and mental-health symptom tracking.
“We expect that BEAM will be able to prevent child mental health problems and developmental impairments when rolled -out in the community”, says Dr. Roos. “This will be tested in a pragmatic clinical trial in which BEAM will be co-delivered by Family Dynamics, a large community organization based in Winnipeg.”
Dr. Roos and her team will track program roll-out and measure BEAM’s success at preventing harsh parenting and improving child health, development, and school-readiness. This partnership model will establish a strategy for wide-scale delivery of BEAM across Canada in a way that is accessible to those that need it most.
Dr. Roos is most excited to help families thrive in the recovery from the pandemic and beyond.