Brooke Schaefer and the CHOICE Team

Mental Health Professional and Team

Brooke Schaefer, MSN, FNP-C, RN, along with all members of Community Health Network’s CHOICE (Change, Hope, Overcome, Inspire, Compassion, Educate) program serving pregnant women diagnosed with substance use disorders (SUD), cares deeply for her patients and leads with her heart! The CHOICE program is designed to help each patient get into a treatment program that works for her and supports her on the path to recovery. Brooke and the team are proponents of ensuring all aspects of treatment are offered in a non-judgmental and compassionate environment, from the medical office to the labor and delivery unit. Brooke has been instrumental in Community’s successful Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) grants, supporting development of a network wide comprehensive perinatal substance program which offers prompt access to medication assisted treatment and treatment for mental health and SUD, screens patients with a standardized social needs tool and addresses needs such as transportation and food insecurity. Throughout the COVID pandemic, the CHOICE team was flexible in meeting the needs of patients, transitioning from a strictly face to face model to primarily a virtual model and now to a hybrid model. Brooke and the CHOICE team are positively impacting two of Indiana’s concerns – infant and maternal mortality and treatment of SUD.