Connections That Care: Peer Facilitated Access to Care (PFAC) - Broward Behavioral Health Coalition, Inc. (BBHC), the Broward Healthy Start Coalition (BHSC), the Florida Department of Children and Families Southeast Region and Child Welfare Programs, the 17th Judicial Circuit Courts, and System of Care partners will implement Connections That Care: Peer-Facilitated Access to Care (PFAC), a five-year Regional Partnership Grant funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children's Bureau. Building on lessons learned through previous RPG initiatives, the project will transform the front door to services for pregnant and parenting families affected by substance use. The project has two primary objectives: (1) prevent and reduce out-of-home placements associated with caregiver substance use and (2) improve child and family functioning. To accomplish this, Broward County will establish its first ever workforce of Maternal Health Engagement Specialists, Certified Recovery Peer Specialists delivering a standardized, manualized engagement intake model that combines lived expertise with evidence-based practices to build trust, identify family needs, and rapidly connect participants to appropriate services. Our partnership’s previous RPG initiatives demonstrated that the greatest barrier to positive outcomes was not service availability, but successful engagement. The PFAC model addresses this challenge by replacing fragmented intake processes with a coordinated, relationship-centered approach that improves engagement at the front door, shortens the time to service access, and strengthens coordination across maternal health, behavioral health, child welfare, and family support systems. PFAC will enroll 258 pregnant women and caregivers of infants up to one year of age who are using substances and whose children are involved in or at risk of entering the child welfare system. Participants will receive peer-facilitated engagement and assessment addressing behavioral health, substance use, recovery capital, maternal health, family functioning, and social determinants of health, before being linked to coordinated services across Broward's system of care. The newly designed intake model will be evaluated using a quasi-experimental design with systematic identification-week assignment. During treatment weeks, eligible participants will receive the PFAC model, while participants identified during standard weeks will receive the community's existing intake process. Outcomes will compare time from identification to first service contact, along with child safety, family functioning, behavioral health, and clinical outcomes at six months.
