Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Health in Parenting (BEAM)

Postpartum (child age 0-5 years) mental health problems are common, with prevalence rates ranging from 15-20% for depression, 3-43% for anxiety, and approximately 30% for anger. Depression, anxiety, and anger often occur comorbidly. If left untreated, these disorders can be long-lasting and lead to child behaviour problems, brain changes, and risk for later mental illness. We developed an app-based treatment for parental mental illness: Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Health in Parenting (BEAM). The BEAM program includes mental health and parenting videos, peer coaching, as well as a forum and drop-in Zoom sessions where parents can connect with each other to receive and provide social support. The program is supported by peer coaches (parents with lived experience of recovery from mental illness and who may have received emotion-focused parenting support) and supervised by clinically-trained staff. Peer coaches check-in with parents weekly to support their progress. Our study will see the BEAM app's effect on parent mental health, parenting stress, child behaviour, and child brain structure and function. 240 parents with high depression, anxiety, and/or anger symptoms will be recruited, with half forming the treatment-as-usual group.