Women’s Recovery Center

Thanks to the United Way of Erie County, Erie Women’s Fund, Beckwith Institute, KeyBank, and Hamot Health Foundation and its Board of Corporators, the Women’s Recovery Center (WRC) has made a remarkable impact on the futures of the babies and their mothers who benefited from the work of the WRC.

One hundred percent of the babies born in the first year avoided any neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) stays related to maternal substance use — a gigantic first step in achieving success from birth and family stability.

The foundation of the WRC is the proven program initiated in 2014 by UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital to reverse the growing impact of opioid abuse in pregnant women and their babies. Last year, the program was implemented in Erie to support women of childbearing years with substance use disorder (SUD) who are pregnant or who have children.

WRC is actively using comprehensive outreach and support resources to address opioid use as well as other substance use disorders that lead to similar negative outcomes for the woman and her children. The clinical program also includes a mobile case manager (MCM) for outreach in our community and response to overdoses in the Emergency Department to discuss options for addiction treatment; and our peer recovery specialist, a mom who is herself in recovery, and is key to engaging and retaining women in treatment and recovery.

The outreach is helping bring more women and families into treatment and recovery and on a path to self-sufficiency by being born into safer homes with families who are more stable and more likely to succeed.

For more information, please call 814-877-8686.