Look Out, PFE is Growing...

Last week Benchmarks’ PFE had its first round of meetings in the Eastern part of North Carolina. After several years focusing our efforts in the Central and Triad regions of North Carolina, in July, the Duke Endowment approved expansion of the project into Pitt and Craven counties in partnership with Trillium.

In addition to being in new stomping grounds, this expansion will be PFE’s first time attempting to lift more than one county at once while also using dual funding sources. To date, the project has worked on on-boarding counties individually with each county having their own adapted versions of PFE protocols and procedures. However, with expansion into Trillium’s catchment the project will be working to bring both counties on-board simultaneously utilizing shared processes and procedures. This move towards joint expansion is an exciting feat for the partnership on multiple fronts. A few reasons for this change in expansion include:

1. PFEs continued commitment to honoring good implementation science. PFE acknowledges the importance of ensuring that the program and its associated outcomes are generalizable to all North Carolinians and ramping up the program to on-board counties simultaneously lends greatly to this notion.
2. Utilizing dual funding for community initiatives and public health programs is an important component to sustainability of program efforts into the future. Buy-in from multiple stakeholders contributes to weaning any adopted changes into the fabric of the community involved.
3. Expanding to contiguous counties increases potential for consistency and continuity of quality trauma-informed services for our children and their families.

Benchmarks’ PFE is so excited for this new venture with our partners at Trillium, Pitt, and Craven counties and are thrilled to be able to add them to our PFE family !