A Pilot in Newfoundland & Labrador to Advance Perinatal Mental Health
In January 2024, the Daymark Foundation set out to create a five-year strategic plan to improve perinatal mental health (PMH) in Canada. With growing momentum and a shared commitment among stakeholders, the goal is clear: to address the mental health needs of pregnant and new parents, improving outcomes for families and society as a whole.
The “Five Big Bets” for Change
Beginning with a stakeholder survey and collaborative discussions, five interconnected priorities emerged as the foundation for this transformative effort:
Promoting Mental Wellbeing: Deploy psychoeducation and self- management tools to all perinatal people, starting at pregnancy
Meeting Basic Needs: Prioritize and address the basic needs of perinatal people
Building Provider Capacity: Mobilize perinatal mental health guidelines to improve provider practices over the long-term in addressing mental health
Facilitating Stepped Care: Provide tailored referrals and support suggestions based on individual needs and preferences
Expanding Peer-Delivered Interventions: Expand peer-delivered interventions through recruitment, training, supervision, compensation and uptake.
These priorities, referred to as the "big bets," are designed to work as a cohesive system rather than stand-alone initiatives.
The “Design Sprint”
In August 2024, we held a “Design Sprint” that brought together a group of 25 perinatal mental health stakeholders, international experts, funders and “unusual suspects” with expertise in specific strategies and approaches that could help the group imagine the “art of the possible.” The meeting focused on ideation: thinking outside the box about implementation and scaling considerations for an ideal perinatal mental health system that could be piloted.
Why Newfoundland & Labrador?
The Daymark Foundation has chosen Newfoundland & Labrador (NL) as the site for its pilot project, leveraging the province’s manageable population size, strong stakeholder relationships (for example, a Perinatal Mental Health Alliance), collaborative infrastructure, and supportive policy environment (for example, a provincial Perinatal Mental Health Task Force). This province serves as a unique starting point, with insights from the pilot poised to inform a nationwide rollout.
Progress and Partnerships
The design phase of the pilot is well underway, with key collaborations in place:
Stepped Care Solutions: Leading project management with expertise in NL's mental health landscape
Akendi: Applying human-centred design to map user journeys and strategies
Blueprint: Generating evidence, assessing needs, and defining long-term outcomes.
A central goal is to create an integrated platform to advance the “big bets”—a hub to connect individuals to services, gather data, and support province-wide implementation.
December 2024 Workshop: A Critical Step Forward
A December Audience Definition and Journey Mapping Workshop brought together experts and stakeholders to gather essential insights about the PMH system in NL. Facilitated by Akendi, this session sought to understand the users’ point of view – to identify key audiences, their experiences, and areas requiring attention. This workshop marked a significant step in the evolution of the Perinatal Mental Health Hub. While the earlier Design Sprint focused on brainstorming ideas and identifying strategic priorities, this session shifted toward practical exploration, grounded in the real-world experiences of the Hub’s intended users.
The workshop aimed to better understand users' challenges, goals, and interactions with current support systems. Together, participants:
Identified key audience groups for the Hub
Mapped their experiences, highlighting pain points and opportunities
Modelled current experiences to uncover areas for meaningful intervention.
This session was an essential move from imagining potential solutions to deeply understanding the needs of the Hub’s target audiences, ensuring its design is rooted in real-world needs. These findings will shape the hub, ensuring it is accessible, user-focused, and effective.
Looking Ahead
As part of the next steps following our December workshop, we are moving into the next phase of the project, which includes 1:1 user interviews. These are individual conversations that will allow us to dig deeper into the experiences, needs, and challenges with the perinatal experience. The insights gathered from these sessions will help validate and expand on the audience and journey mapping work we’ve started, ensuring the solutions we design are truly aligned with user needs.
Your feedback and insights are invaluable as we continue this journey. By integrating existing efforts, attracting funding, and creating a coordinated PMH system, we aim to scale this work across Canada. For questions or ideas, please feel free reach out to Lori at lori[at]thedaymarkfoundation.com