Southern Healthcare Collaboration, Inc.

Southern Healthcare Collaboration will mobilize Consortium efforts, strategically increasing awareness of, and access to, SUD screening and treatment for women of childbearing age. Individuals served across the healthcare and law enforcement sectors will be screened for substance use and pregnancy and connected to appropriate services in a "warm handoff" strategy. SHC's HealtHIE Community Center of Baxley is already an MAT site that offers physical and behavioral healthcare. The continuum of care will be strengthened through the addition of on-site OB-GYN services, as well as Family Medical Practice Physician services and Pediatric services delivered by traveling professionals from Bacon County Health System. Providers across the eight-county region will be offered new opportunities to be certified as a Buprenorphine MAT provider, with grant funds covering expenses related to certification. Recovery services will be supported by Pineland Community Service Board through available Transitional Mother Baby Housing. Transportation will be available to support expectant mothers and new mothers as they attend appointments. Goal #1: Reduce structural- and systems-level barriers (transportation challenges, limited workforce, reimbursement issues) to increase access to behavioral healthcare, especially for SUD/OUD disorders, for rural pregnant and postpartum persons and their families, and to address community risk factors and social determinants of health. Goal #2: Strengthen the quality and sustainability of behavioral health care services for rural pregnant and postpartum persons and their families by implementing coordinated, evidence-based, trauma-informed, family-centered SUD/OUD and other services.