Healthy Mothers Healthy Families 3 (HMHF3) - Abstract The purpose of this project is to enhance the service delivery system at Odyssey House, Inc. (OH) by developing the Healthy Mothers Healthy Families 3 Program (HMHF3) program to address the unique life circumstances and needs of pregnant and postpartum women and their children in residential substance abuse treatment. HMHF3 will attend to trauma, parenting, and reunification and reconciliation with family members in conjunction with intense chemical dependency treatment to develop a family system model of care that will incorporate the whole family unit, and not just the individual, as the focus of care. We will implement a full continuum of existing best-practice interventions for two targeted substance abusing populations which often encounter barriers preventing access to care: pregnant and postpartum women (defined as having given birth in the previous twelve months). The targeted geographic areas the program proposes to serve are New York City communities located in Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx. The goal of HMHF3 is to strengthen the instrumental and social functioning of Project participants by enhancing current services provided with evidenced-based practices of Motivational Interviewing, Trauma Recovery Empowerment Model, Solution-Focused Therapy, and Recovery Coaching. Retention support delivered via a Family Peer Advocate will maximize our menu of wrap-around services, while the proposed evidence-based practices delivered within a trauma-informed context by licensed social Workers address issues key to engaging the targeted women in long-term recovery. Goals to be achieved through the HMHF3 include: (1) decrease the misuse of prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco, illicit and other harmful drugs among pregnant and postpartum women; (2) increase safe and healthy pregnancies and improve birth outcomes; (3) reduce perinatal and environmentally related effects of maternal and/or paternal drug abuse on infants; and children; (4) prevent mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders among the children; (5) improve the mental and physical health of the women and children; (6) improve parenting skills, family functioning, economic stability, and quality of life; and (7) to decrease involvement in an exposure to crime, violence, sexual and physical abuse, and child abuse and neglect. We plan to enrolled 230 pregnant and postpartum women and their families over the five-year project period.
